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 for their heads blindly. He’d cut their heads off all of them and run away while they put them on. Probably try to burn them all. Though they didn’t burn all the way through in the fire, either, he was doing them harm. If Medea Shai had not descended on a dragon from behind the clouds and blown a handful of sleeping charms in his face, he would not have given up so easily. He wouldn’t have expected more danger from the beautiful lady than from a whole company of evil spirits.
Now this most beautiful powerful lady had become his mistress. Such a companion every knight could only dream of, but not Tamlane. A love imposed by compulsion tormented him more than shackles. Perhaps if Medea Shai had behaved tactfully and not forced her dark passion and intimacy upon him at once, he would have loved her in time. But to love a being who forces intimacy on you and seeks to control all your desires is too much!
But for all those who have not yet managed to force a love bed, and such gathered in the lobby of her palace most of them, Medea Shai caused sincere admiration. She was feared, but her truly magical beauty still inspired involuntary respect. Every fairy secretly wished to be like the queen, every elf dreamed of sharing a bed with her.
Thierry, the elves’ chief with whom Tamlein had not so long ago clashed in the woods, had been watching her dusky majesty unceasingly. He had longed for a queen for a long time, but he had never had a chance to be in her bed. Everyone knew that Medea Shai preferred to take only dragons as lovers. They are her equal in strength and power. So no one would serve her better than them. But Thierry was strong too. He was the strongest of the elves in Corund. He kept hoping… At first the dragons, scaly and clawed and fire-breathing, had bypassed him, he tolerated that. But when Tamlane appeared and took the bed to which Thierry himself had been aiming as easily as a dragon breathed no fire. Medea Shae’s black lover had not even had time to breathe a flame, and he had already been displaced by a mortal. Thierry hated him fiercely. It was hatred he cherished in his soul like a precious flower. Even now he looked as if he was ready to kill Tamlane at any moment if the queen commanded it. But she was in no hurry to give such an order. And Thierry grew more and more angry. For all his elfish beauty, he looked more and more like not an elf, but a chain dog who was not allowed to bite to death a burglar who had broken into a house.
He regarded Tamlane as the worst evil in the universe and wished to drive his rival out of Corund. In the latter, Tamlane would gladly agree with him. He himself had dreamed of escaping from here. If only it was that easy… Medea Shai’s charms were as strong as her blind love for her own captive.
Before he knew it, she was there. She knew how to move subtly and quickly. Her long, spidery fingers stroked his shoulders. The black moths that flew over her head were like a living veil.
«I can feel the resistance in you,» Medea Shai said to him, kissing his cheeks, his temples, his lips. «It’s as if you don’t belong to me. Your consciousness is somewhere far away now. Not with me! Don’t you like being my prisoner? Look,» she turned him to face the retinue of elves. «Any one of them would give anything to be you, in my heart, in my bed, beside me. And you act like you’re not happy.»
She frowned gracefully. Her flying black eyebrows resembled the curve of wings. The skin of her face was white as a shell. The intricate relief of her cheekbones