without the joining. Such a choice could have caused strife among the Belmairans, and strife is the very thing Belmairans seek to avoid, is it not? I am told that you despise those you call Hetarians. But I am not a Hetarian.”
“But you come from the world of Hetar,” Duke Alban of Belia said quietly.
“I was born in the Outlands, a place reviled by Hetarians. The man I spent half my life believing was my father was the clan chief of a people known as the Fiacre. He was murdered in a plot conceived by Hetar’s rulers. He had displeased them by fighting back when they attempted to invade the Outlands. He had organized the seven tribes inhabiting the region into a single government. Under his leadership, and that of my mother, they had driven Hetar from their lands, and punished them, as well.
“My mother is a faerie woman with some small amount of mortal blood. Her name is Lara. Her parents are Ilona, queen of the Forest Faeries, and John Swiftsword, now deceased, a Hetarian mercenary who earned the rank of Crusader Knight. He was of mixed mortal and faerie blood. My grandfather died in a great battle against the forces of darkness. He was called the greatest swordsman in Hetar’s history. While my mother’s early years were spent in Hetar, she left it to follow her destiny, which is not yet entirely fulfilled,” Dillon explained.
“When I was twelve,” he continued, “I was sent to Prince Kaliq to be trained in the magic arts. I have, since an early age, exhibited a strong leaning toward these arts, and my mother believed that only this Shadow Prince could train me properly. The ability for magic is a great gift, my lords, a great responsibility, and an equally great burden for those who have it. I have lived in the world of the Shadow Princes since I was twelve, and only when my fate became clear did my father reveal the truth of my parentage to me. I am of the Shadows. I am faerie. But I am not Hetarian.”
“We call the world from which you come Hetar,” Duke Alban said.
“How did you know you might send your dissenters to that which appears to be no more than a star?” Dillon queried him.
“We told them,” Kaliq said quietly. “When we saw the trouble some were causing here in Belmair we offered to share a portion of our world with them where they might be isolated. The Shadows know all that occurs in the cosmos. It is our calling.”
“So you called your rebels Hetarians after the world to which they were sent,” Dillon mused aloud. “Did you ever consider there might be other races upon that star?”
Duke Alban shook his head. “The Shadows offered us a solution to our problem, Majesty, and we accepted it,” he said. “Whatever else was involved had nothing to do with Belmair.”
Dillon nodded as if in agreement with Duke Alban. You have given me a far greater task than I first realized, my lord father, he said silently to Kaliq. I am beginning to see where the Hetarian attitude was born. He heard Kaliq chuckle so softly that only his ears might hear it.
“My lords,” Cinnia spoke. “We have prepared a feast to celebrate your coming. Will you join us? And Duke Dreng, I would ask that you allow me to send a servant to fetch your grandson, Calleo, and permit him to join us.”
“I will right gladly,” Dreng said.
“I remember being eleven,” Dillon noted. “I suspect the lad will be vastly relieved not to have to marry a sorceress this day.”
And his companions within the room laughed loudly, the dukes slapping each other on the back. Kaliq caught Nidhug’s eye, and the dragon nodded, well pleased by how the morning had gone. Despite Kaliq’s assurances, she had been concerned at how the three dukes would take the appointment of a foreigner to their throne. But it had gone well. Dillon had acquitted himself admirably before the trio of Belmair’s high aristocracy. He obviously had his father’s ability to charm. And Cinnia had behaved beautifully due in part, the dragon suspected, to her husband’s public behavior toward her. Dillon had not robbed her of her dignity.
“Thank you,” she said quietly to Kaliq.
The prince turned his beautiful bright blue eyes upon Nidhug.
“You are wise beyond all others of your race that I have known,” he told her. “I will see that my son heeds your advice, my lady dragon.” He took her hand up, and kissed the blue-green scales.
“Allow me a small indulgence,” he said to her, and then he murmured a small spell, and Nidhug’s elegant claws were suddenly sheathed in pure gold. “Ah, yes, much better,” Kaliq told her. “You have such lovely claws. They are beautifully shaped.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” the dragon cried holding out her hands to admire his handiwork. “Thank you, my dear Kaliq.” She looked into his eyes as she spoke, and suddenly in an instant Nidhug knew what it would be like to be made love to by this great lord of the Shadows. She drew in a sharp breath as heat suffused her body, which threatened to expand to her normal size. She swallowed back the flame in her throat and for a brief moment she glowed ruby-red. Fortunately no one saw what was happening, and the dragon was saved embarrassment. “Kaliq!” she scolded him, and the Shadow Prince shrugged apologetically.
Then together they entered the Great Hall of the castle where the banquet awaited.
3
“MY SON IS WHERE?” Lara, Domina of Terah, said.
It was afternoon in the desert palace of Shunnar. The private garden of the prince was hot, and the heady fragrance of damask roses hung heavy in the air. Along a wall decorated by a stand of tall hollyhocks in reds, pinks, yellows, peach and lavender, several small green birds hovered over the blossoms, their tiny wings beating furiously as their long beaks sipped nectar from the flowers. The garden’s fountain tinkled soothingly, the sunlight giving the arc of spray from it a rainbow appearance.
“Dillon is now the king of Belmair,” Kaliq said quietly.
“Why is my son king of a nebulous world of which I know less than nothing?” Lara demanded of him. “I recall my mother mentioning it briefly many years ago. She said the magic kingdoms call the great sky the Cosmos, and that there were other worlds within it, and the star we call Belmair was one. I could hardly conceive it then. And now you tell me my son is no longer in our world? That he is there?”
“Dillon was needed, and it was his fate to be there,” Kaliq said. “The dragon needed him, Lara, my love.”
“The dragon?” Her voice had risen at least a full octave. “What dragon?”
“The Great Dragon of Belmair, Nidhug,” Kaliq replied. “You must calm yourself, my love, for all is well. Dillon is exactly where he should be at this time.”
“You had no right to steal my son and send him to some other world in this Cosmos of yours!” Lara cried. “Why, at least, did you not tell me first? I have always trusted you, Kaliq. Why did you feel it was necessary to do this without speaking to me beforehand? You know how much I love Dillon.” Her beautiful green eyes were filling with tears. “Will I ever see him again?” Her voice had begun to quaver just slightly.
Kaliq put his arms about her. She was, he thought sadly to himself, as beautiful, as vulnerable, as compelling as she had ever been despite the fact that her oldest children were grown, and her younger children half-grown. “Of course you will see Dillon again. I will take you to Belmair anytime you want to go, Lara, my love.”
For a brief moment she was content to be in his arms, but
