will and body. But Ambrose resisted, and the fairy’s mark hurt him. Janet touched the mark with her hand. It vibrated.
«Are you her slave?»
«Morally, yes, but she does not call. And that makes it especially painful for me.»
«My elf knight is not like that. He would not harm me.»
«Not him, but the people around him. And there is a scar on your arm…»
Janet only now noticed that Tamlane’s kiss had left a mark on her palm, like a burn in the shape of a bizarre sorcerer’s symbol. In the afternoon, as they said goodbye, Tamlane intercepted and kissed her hand for some reason, as if her lips alone weren’t enough for him.
Ambrose was good, too. He looked at her with such condemnation during the day, and at night he admitted that he himself was at the mercy of some fairy who had long ago abandoned him. No wonder, then, why he’s so eager for Janet’s love to break, too. After all, he hasn’t found reciprocity himself. He is nothing but a jealous man.
«I’ll think about everything you said,» Janet assured her, «but I can’t promise to give up my elf.»
Ambrose nodded, signaling that he respected her decision, however reckless it might seem to him.
«Remember, if you need any advice on how to fight magic, I’m always here for you.»
He bowed to her. He left, and the tapestry beside her seemed to breathe, the figures on it as if they were moving, acting out a scene from the past and trying to warn her about something.
Wishes in Chains
«You first did it because you wanted to, not because you were forced to,» Malachite flew behind Tamlane, noisily discussing his recent intimacy with the mortal girl. «The queen will notice that. You changes, you feel the hope of deliverance in you. Medea Shai will kill us all for this!»
Tamlane did not answer him. What was the use? The emerald colored serpent was only worried about his own precious hide.
«Keeping you prisoner is cruel,» he tried to justify. «Forcing you to sleep with a monster is even more cruel. But those are the rules. Once you’re captured, you don’t get to choose what you want or who you love.»
«You could have kept quiet,» Tamlane said. «And there was no need to peep at me. Don’t you have enough keyholes in the castle? You only used to peep through them. You look into Medea Shae’s bedroom every night, and that is until her dragon hisses fire when he smells a spy.»
«This is your bedroom, too, until a new minion displaces you,» Malachite reminded him reasonably.
«This is my prison,» Tamlane corrected him firmly. That’s what he considered his forced love affair with Medea Shai a prison and slavery.
«But a dragon doesn’t consider it a prison,» the serpent behind him jokingly remarked.
The dragon, because of Tamlane, had to hole up on the roof of the tower that housed the queen’s bedchamber to observe the starry skies all night. Sometimes he would crawl inside and huddle in the boudoir. He wanted to kill his rival, but the queen would not let him.
Everything in the Forest Kingdom, Corund, was subject only to the queen’s wishes. No one here had the right to his will. Medea Shai had tight control over everyone. If she found out someone was dreaming something in secret from her, she would immediately clear his mind with magic. She was good at reading minds, and if any supernatural creatures were not deft enough to hide their thoughts in time, they were subjected to various magical experiments in her hands and open harassment by her dragon retinue. Medea Shai loved to deprive her unfaithful even at the thought of her subjects of reason, memory, and hope, and they were transformed into helpless puppets that she treated as broken toys. Someone who lost his mind after her sorcery, she then banished from the kingdom to be mocked by mortals. After all, humans were so fond of catching and displaying creatures at the fair that looked something like funny animals with wings and tails and fins, even if combined with an elegant elf’s head.
Tamlane grew sad, thinking that if Janet managed to get him out of Corund without fully casting a spell, he himself would pass for such an amusing beast in people’s eyes. The green sprouts on his skin alone make him a peculiar creature.
Lily had it a lot harder. She had turned into a tree. She had been a clever and resourceful girl in life, but she had no idea how to escape now. She could only watch in silence as everyone who was lazy picked leaves from its branches and moan in pain. Other than moaning, the tree made no sound. But Tamlane somehow believed that Lily had not lost her ability to speak. Her graceful lips and eyelids were clearly visible against the wooden head. It seemed as if she was just about to open her mouth to say something. Since the tree stood right in the hallway, Lily could hear everything the secretive fairies were gossiping about. All their secrets were instantly known to her. If Tamlane could talk to her, she would probably retell him some overheard secrets that might prove useful to the rescue. But the wooden lips were so still. It was as if it was hard for them to move, though they tried.
The queen of the fairies was discussing something with the hideous black creatures that scurried beneath her feet like pageboys. She noticed her knight’s appearance in the hall, and smiled slyly at him. The large scarlet gem that grew from the skin of her forehead flashed mysteriously. It was rumored to have sprouted in her skin when she had seized power in Corund and now replaced her third eye, which was, of course, all-seeing. Tamlane did not know how true these rumors were, but Medea Shai’s power over magical beings was truly limitless. Tamlane was the only one who resisted her influence. He wasn’t exactly a magical creature. His humanity had not yet died in him. No matter how hard the queen tried to take away his memory that he had once been human, she failed. He was the only one she had not yet succeeded in taking away his mind. She was, of course, not happy about that. It was more convenient for her to turn the captive knight into her obedient plaything. But Tamlane resisted her, and their life together in the realm of fairies was turning to hell. The black dragon was jealous, and the fairies’ eyes awakened a fierce desire to rival the queen, which they, knowing the queen’s violent temper, did their best to conceal, but the atmosphere still heated up.
The elves hated Tamlane, sensing in him a strong rival. They all wanted his wonderful dragon-body armor, but they burned themselves on it. But he had managed to take them himself once. And he paid the price. Not right away! In the beginning he won the war. His enemies fled from him. Legends began to circulate about him that he was invincible. And some strange creature on the battlefield stood hunched over and listened. Tamlane did not pay attention to him at the time, mistaking him for a cripple who had come to beg from the victors or search to see if anything of value was hidden in the pockets of the dead. Marauders were not usually welcome, but he did not touch one crippled creature, and then regretted it. The creature with the red eyes and rags was the spy of a fairies’ queen. And the black bird with the puffy tail and corundum in its forehead, flying over the field and as if counting dead bodies, was Medea Shai’s personal spy. Even then one could detect laughter in her cawing.
«You are a knight in dragon’s armor. You are a dragon knight,» she cawed. «You will not win forever. Because there is no knight my people cannot defeat.»
She was almost mistaken. His troop, with which he was returning through the forest, was attacked. And he almost defeated them all. Yes, they couldn’t be killed. Superbeings live on, even with their heads cut off. Arms, legs, paws, and tails reattach as soon as you cut them off. And they have to look
