opponents tonight. There was no point in being distracted by trivialities. There are many handsome young men wandering around Livellin. There is always someone to meet here. And you can’t even see this stranger’s face under the mask. What if he’s disfigured or branded? You never know. Criminals were branded in Livellin. He could well be a thief or a rogue who deliberately lures the princess into a trap.
But what eyes he has! They are not eyes, but two bottomless pools the color of heaven. Graymore kept thinking of his eyes as she blindly aimed at the snapped pheasant, and then at the clay jug with the copper coin inside to make it jingle while the jug was tossed in the air. Before it fell, it had to be broken into shards with an arrow. Graymore managed and removed the blindfold from her eyes.
The young man in the dragon mask disappeared from the crowd somewhere, and it felt like he was still around.
The last round was to pass an arrow through a narrow ring of fire so that the arrow would not catch fire. It was something that Graymore had managed many times before. She had done it now. The arrow flew through the blazing ring and didn’t catch fire, but the square suddenly burst into flames. A barrel of gunpowder must have exploded in one of the city’s armories.
«Put out the fire!» Graymore commanded her servants and squires. She herself was left alone. One noble was attacked. A man cut off his purse and fled across the blazing square. The flames did not burn him. But he himself had time to take down the flag and throw it into the fire. It is an insult to Livellin. Graymore drew an arrow from her quiver, took aim, and struck the runner down. The shot must not have put him to death, otherwise how could he be questioned later.
The fire was partially extinguished, but the flags that were flying in the square were burnt out. Bad omen! Graymore, without waiting for the guards, went to the thief. He appeared to have dropped dead, pierced by her arrow, but as she turned the corpse over he was breathing. He was either covered in pockmarks and warts, or not even human, but some kind of troll.
The guards came up, but Graymore wanted to interrogate the captured man herself. He laughed dryly before she even asked the first question.
«There is but one of a dynasty of rulers left in Livellin, and soon it will be gone too,» he hissed. «They will come for you, and you will change.»
She did not have time to ask what he meant by that, for he had gone out of breath, but just as he was being presumed dead, the dead man suddenly came to life, plucked an arrow from his chest, sprang to his feet, and crawled away down the gutter of the nearest building. It looked like a troll, but not a human. He was moving so fast that his lightning-fast movements could scarcely be traced by sight.
«Go after him!» Graymore ordered the guards.
The fire went out. Strangely enough, it appeared where the statuesque stranger in the dragon mask had passed. Graymore looked around for him. He could not have burned in the fire. She didn’t want to believe that outcome. She wished she could see him again. But she wouldn’t even recognize him without his mask.
The thief’s words lingered in her brain. Who would come for her? Are they dragons? But they usually fly, not walk. So he didn’t mean dragons.
Graymore, of course, won the archery contest again. The tournament director put a laurel wreath on her head. The laurel has long been awarded to heroes. She is a hero to her country! She would surely be chosen queen, not her brothers.
Something rang in the wind. A single golden laurel appeared among the laurel trees in the grove! It was its leaves tinkling in the wind. Can a laurel be golden? The wreath for the victor is made of gold by jewelers. But the golden tree, with its golden roots in the ground, seemed like a miracle. The fairies were gathered around them, whispering excitedly. Graymore was too shy to approach them.
Though she was wearing her wreath of victory today, it did not give her the right to communicate with magical creatures.
«She is a poor girl!» The fairies whispered. «She doesn’t even know what awaits her.»
«If she stays here!» interrupted the chorus of fairies one fairy who was sitting on the branches of a laurel tree, which was turning golden by her presence. The gilding slowly ran down from the top of the tree.
Graymore gasped. These are real fairies who can work miracles. If you ask them about her future, unlike the phlegmatic skeleton, they will answer exactly what awaits her. After all, everyone knows that fairies are the most talented soothsayers.
And about whom they are now talking? Who is in trouble?
«If she knew the secrets of her kind,» the fairies whispered. «She would not have been so careless. She would not have made so many mistakes. She is wasting her great gifts. She looks for enemies in the wrong places. And they are right at her side. They are almost in her heart.»
«They are not in her heart!» The tree fairy objected again. «She doesn’t like them. Blood does not mean much. Often love in a family is only a formality, not a feeling. We know little of those who are kindred to us.»
«Her kin are dragons.»
«It is not yet.»
«And what about his kin? The most beautiful king in the world wears scales instead of jewelry. He burned his own kingdom because he couldn’t control his temper. Can he be bewitched?»
«He can! But is it worth it?» The fairy on the laurel yawned. «I’m going to sleep here,» she declared.
«Don’t you dare! Or the whole grove will be gold.»
«So be it! The princess deserved it. She fought gloriously for the laurel wreath of victory. Let the laurel here be golden in her honor.»
The fairy fell asleep, and the crown of the tree covered her with leaves as if she never existed. The other fairies whispered together.
«She is a poor princess!»
Is this any way to honor a winner? Graymore was hiding behind the laurel tree and eavesdropping on them. Did they know she was watching them? The fairies flew past her in a slew of glittering figures. One even whipped her on the shoulder with a wing and didn’t notice. Graymore looked in their wake and groaned. The laurel beneath her hands turned golden. The fairy had fulfilled her promise.
Flames in dreams
Graymore was thrashing about on the king’s bed. She dreamed of a dragon. They were either fighting or making love with him. Suddenly, instead of a dragon, there was a young man. Handsome as an elf, but his breath was fiery.
«Your blood is fiery,» said Graymore, «but you are not a dragon. How could that be?»
He kissed her, breathing fire on her lips. She was to burn. That was the end of the dream.
She was to burn with love in the literal sense, not in the poetic sense. It was a fiery romance!
Graymore could have indulged in dreams of the hero of her dreams all day, but business was urgent. She must pack for the road. If she did not defeat the dragon on the southern border, no one would.
The squires looked at the princess with reverence, as if she were a heroine.
«You are not coming with me,» Graymore informed them.
There
