in case, I’ve sent my spirit spies to every corner of the empire. Have them sniff around, ask around, and report back to me. The efforts of Percy, my steward, will be enough to rebuild housing for the dwarves and the rest of the wicked and give them healing elixirs. Well, what awaits me is an evening feast with the dryads and the azure nymph. I invited them into the castle, ignited numerous candles with my breath. The viands appeared on the table. The wine, slightly diluted by the fire, quickly cheered everyone up and ignited an inordinate passion. In my new bedroom there were wide oriental beds, and no more empresses. I was going to invite all the ladies to my room for the night. My good looks usually captivated women so much that they would throw themselves into my arms, regardless of the risk of burning in them. Only now it was as if I was possessed by an insidious genie. I wanted to seduce with the help of charms, to deceive, to lure into a love net and to kill. It was as if some demon had come through the windows into the banquet hall and hid behind the curtain, taking the shape of a woman in a golden dress with a high openwork collar and a hoop of moonstones on her forehead.
I could not see the lunar vision as I was drunk, but the lovely dryads were already hanging on my arms and shoulders, kissing me and noisily thanking me for the wonderful dinner. Cypress offered to play the lute, Ash offered to sing, and others offered to dance.
– It’s a pity we didn’t invite our sisters, Cherry and Lilac,” complained Willow, “but their houses haven’t burned down yet, and they had no reason to come here. Maybe we’ll invite them next time.”
“Of course,” I nodded eagerly and finished my glass of fiery wine. Everything inside of me was on fire. I put my arms around Willow and began to unfasten her corset. The laces were thin green vines. There was bark growing on her breasts instead of nipples, but I liked the strangeness of it.
“Cherry and Lilac are probably more charming than any of you,” I muttered drunkenly. What I’m reduced to without Rose. I’d never gotten drunk and clung to women before. It is rightly said that only a husband who has a good wife can be a good husband. My wife wasn’t a good wife, and I blossomed. The skin with a mixture of leaves and bark began to excite me, I caressed it, slightly burning with fire, but the dryads liked it all the same. Only the nymph was afraid to burn, so I wanted to ask her to leave right now. There are enough enchantresses here without her, but she wouldn’t leave. And there was jealousy in her azure eyes.
On the one hand I could experience pleasures like a sultan in a harem. By the way, an Eastern ruler advised me to have a harem. I think he wasn’t as wrong as I thought at first. On the other hand, a nagging self-pity lurked inside my mind. Why should I seek solace in temporary company like a mortal king? I was unlucky with my spouse, before that I was unlucky with my mother. Neither of them did their duty to me, gracefully excusing with the fact that I was a dragon and they hadn’t counted on that. I never have seen my mother, her opinion was relayed to me through random messengers. Rhiannon herself never once graced me with a visit. If she were a good mother and a mother-in-law who cared for her family’s welfare, she would have dragged Rose back here by the hair. One might not be strong enough to handle an Earth sorceress. But Rhiannon is the queen of hell. She can do anything. But she’s just forgotten about me. Unlike my loving father, who himself had once suffered so much from his beloved’s indifference that he now sympathized with me fiercely. But that was the end of his sympathy.
His compassion was expressed in storms, winds, floods and inclement weather. The earth was torn by volcanic eruptions and hurricanes. So that it was not calm on earth when disturbed by him. But all these inclement weathers mostly concerned the world where mortals lived. The dragon in my realm, on the other hand, became just my problem.
I hugged several dryads at once and wanted to put out the candelabras, but the flames in them suddenly sang, taking the shape of dancing figures.
“How can you continue to feast here without Rose?”
Did my friends hear that? Even if they did, they didn’t seem to. Their kisses made me drunker than wine, though they tasted of bark.
“Just as she can go on without me,” I countered. And the flames went out. The ghost’s moonlit silhouette still flickered behind the curtain. Perhaps it would get tired of hiding there and join me and the dryads in the imperial bedroom.
Unexpected raider
I awoke to the smell of burning. The night had certainly been hot, but not so hot that smoke was now seeping into the castle. All the flames were blazing in the bedchamber, and extinguished there as well. The dryads weren’t burned, only the canopy was slightly burnt. It can’t smell like that.
“It’s fields, Monsignor,” a worried gnome came rushing into the bedroom. Obviously he’d been here since last night. I don’t usually keep dwarves in the castle. They were too much trouble. And now the visitor was stunned at what he saw in the bedroom, blushed with shame and quickly ducked behind the screen so that I wouldn’t crush him.
The news he brought, however, was timely. The fields behind the castle were indeed on fire. The smoke was billowing. What a thing! When had I ever been attacked in my own castle before? Usually I was the one to scorch other people’s fortresses, but I had never been besieged.
The dragon outside intends to make my life a living hell. That sounds like the act of a jealous woman! Only Rosa could do that. I was even beginning to suspect that she had sent the dragon. But where could she have gotten it? After being married to me for so long, she was hardly attracted to dragons. And this dragon was unusual. He could ignite not only the summer fields, but also the snowy valleys that were covered in eternal cold at the gates of my castle. You couldn’t even light a match there, and his fire ignited even the snow.
“It is the moon dragon!” Cypress wrapped herself in the covers, jumped out of bed, and sprinted to the window. “He really doesn’t look like you! He is glowing like the sickle of the month!”
The others were just waking up, but I didn’t care what they thought. I rushed to the fields. That dragon, whoever he is, doesn’t realize the trouble he’s gotten himself into. Attacking the lord of the magic empire himself! On the one hand, it’s brazen and reckless. But secretly, I admired his courage and assertiveness. If he’s not insane, he clearly wants to assert his right to something and he’s challenging me to a duel.
The fire was terrible. The wall of fire almost reached the castle towers. All I had to do was to step onto the field and my charms began to extinguish the fire by themselves. There was no need for buckets of water or poison tinctures, which the Leprechauns had already collected. The flames first dropped to the level of my boots, then disappeared altogether. The poisonous fumes dissolved into the air. Orange sparks danced in sheaves on the burnt grass, and the leprechauns caught them, turning them into coins. The raid had turned into a form of magic trick, but that didn’t mean I was going to let the raider go in peace. He’s the one who shouldn’t go unpunished. I followed his flight through the azure morning sky. How beautiful that dragon is! It is indeed as pale golden as the moon, and the spikes sprouting from the scales on its head are indeed like a royal crown. Each scale reflects the light of the sun like a mirror. Involuntarily, I stared. The unfamiliar dragon must have tried to bewitch me. I shook off the obsession with difficulty and remembered its audacity.
The grass turning to dry hay beneath my soles must have reminded me that he had burned my fields. His arrival here had been unauthorized. No one invited him. And he did not come as a petitioner to my court, but as an enemy setting fire to other people’s property. It’s time to teach him a lesson!
I prepared
