woman, who knows what Dillon’s life would have been like. And Lara would have remained with me and accomplished none of what she needed to do. She would not have left her child to my brothers and me.”
“Yet from all you have shared with me previously she did leave her children to follow her destiny,” the dragon said.
“Aye, she did. But the children were with the Fiacre, and always safe, living as normal mortal children live. But of course early on Dillon began sensing that he was different, and his fascination with magic was unquenchable. Lara thought his talents came from her, and decided that I must be the one to teach him. He has been with me since he was twelve, and it has been a joy,” Kaliq said, his face alight. “I will miss our daily contact, but our magic allows us to be together quickly.”
“And you believe that together he and Cinnia can solve the mystery of why our young women have been disappearing over these last hundred years?” Nidhug asked.
“Look what their simple joining created tonight,” Kaliq reminded the dragon.
Nidhug nodded. “Do you think it will happen every time they join?” she wondered.
“I frankly admit to not having an answer to that question,” Kaliq said.
“Can you give them love?” the dragon asked sentimentally. “A marriage is so much better when there is love.”
“I could give them love,” Kaliq said quietly, “but it is better if they find that love for themselves. It is there, Nidhug. My son knows how to please a woman, but he has never loved one. And your young mistress is innocent where men are concerned. Tonight they have begun their adventure. In time the love that is buried within each of them will claim them. We have but to wait and be patient.”
“My lord Kaliq,” the dragon ventured slowly, “do you know the answer to the mystery of Belmair’s missing women? I know you know far more than you are ever willing to admit. But that is the nature of your kind.”
“I do not know,” Kaliq told her. “But I believe by combining their powers my son and his bride can overcome whatever the difficulty is.”
“Is it evil?” Nidhug asked him.
“I cannot tell. It cannot, however, be good, but sometimes there are those who cause unintentional wickedness. Dillon and Cinnia will learn the truth,” the prince promised the dragon. “Belmair is theirs, and they will not allow it to be destroyed.”
The dragon nodded. “I will show you to your bedchamber now,” she said. “Then I will return to my own castle. Tomorrow will be a long one, and the dukes will need all the reassurances I can give them that what has transpired is the right thing.” She arose and led Kaliq from her privy chamber to another room where a silent servant awaited to help the prince prepare for sleep. “I bid you good-night, my lord,” the dragon said, and then she was gone.
Kaliq allowed the servant to bring him water to wash. He ordered a tub for the morning, and requested that he be awakened at sunrise. The servant bowed himself from the chamber, and Kaliq was alone. The last few hours had been amazing. He wondered if he might gain entry to the Dream Plain from Belmair. If he could find Lara, then perhaps they might speak and he could tell her what he had done. But then he decided against it. He owed Lara the courtesy of telling her face-to-face. The prince slept.
In the morning after he had bathed and eaten, he asked the servant assigned to him to take him to the young king. He found his son busy studying a map of Belmair in a light-filled library. “Good morning,” he called to Dillon.
“Good morning, my lord,” Dillon replied. “I am looking over this new world you have given me to see if there is something wrong somewhere that will give me a starting point to solving the mystery, but it all seems ordinary.”
“Where is Cinnia?” Kaliq asked.
“Preparing herself to meet the dukes later,” Dillon said.
“Should you not be doing the same?” Kaliq said. “You must honor these men, my son, for you can be certain they were not expecting the king they have been given. You will need to exercise a great deal of diplomacy with them. The people we know as Hetarians were exiled because they wanted to make changes in tradition here, but they were also sent away because they were willing to fight over it. The Belmairans think themselves above that kind of thing.”
“Their need to hold to their traditions and not change is similar of the people of Hetar,” Dillon noted. “Everything changes, my lord. Nothing remains the same.”
“Nay, it doesn’t,” Kaliq agreed, “and that is precisely where the problem lies here. For over a hundred years the Belmairans have had a problem, but because the problem did not jibe with their traditions, they ignored it. Now it could be too late.”
“You cannot know if it is too late until we learn what is causing this problem,” Dillon said in logical tones.
Kaliq chuckled. “Precisely, my son,” he replied. “Now go and dress yourself properly so you may greet your guests with honor.”
“I have no clothing but what I was wearing yesterday when we came,” Dillon said.
“You will find your possessions in the king’s bedchamber. Come, and I will show you,” Kaliq said. “Do you know how to return to the royal apartments?”
Dillon grinned. “I do,” he said, and then he proceeded to lead his father to them.
There he found the carved and painted wooden wardrobe filled with beautiful garments. The robes and tunics were decorated with embroidery, bejeweled and ornamented with gold and silver. There were trousers and capes. The fabrics were rich. Silks, soft wools, cottons. Many of the garments were white, for that was the color the princes wore most, and Dillon was considered one of them because of his father. In a painted chest with drawers the young king found accessories of all kinds, and a large box filled with magnificent jewelry. The wardrobe also contained shoes and boots of fine leather in several colors.
Dillon examined it all, and then turning to his father, said with a wry smile, “You have provided me with a fine dower portion, my lord Kaliq.”
The prince chuckled. “You are a king now, Dillon. It is fitting you present yourself like one.” He clapped his hands, and a servant hurried in to bow before them. “Help His Majesty to prepare himself for his guests,” Kaliq told the man. Then he turned to his son again. “I will await you in your day chamber,” he said.
When Dillon appeared almost an hour later, he was garbed in flowing white trousers and a long white tunic that was bejeweled and decorated with pure gold threads upon the wide cuffs of his sleeves and six-inch-wide border at the tunic’s bottom. The tunic’s neckline was a round one. There was a heavy gold chain about his neck, and on eight of his fingers he wore a ring, each with a different colored stone. Diamond. Ruby. Sapphire. Emerald. Amethyst. Topaz. Peridot. And a great black pearl on the middle finger of his left hand. On his feet were red leather slippers decorated with gold.
“Will I honor the dukes, my lord?” he asked Kaliq.
“You will,” the prince said, nodding, satisfied, and for the first time realizing what a truly handsome man Dillon had become. Tall and slender with a body well toned by his physical activities. Slightly tanned from the desert sun that Dillon loved so well. His dark hair was cropped short and styled simply. The blue eyes that had once appeared to all as Vartan’s were now the bright blue of a Shadow Prince. “You have the natural presence of a king,” Kaliq noted. “Your mother would be proud of you.”
“Will I ever see her again?” Dillon asked, and for the first time since they had arrived in Belmair yesterday his voice sounded vulnerable. Dillon had always been very close to Lara, who loved him with a love all mothers kept only for their firstborn.
“Of course you will see her. As soon as I tell her what has happened she will want to come, and she will not be satisfied until I have brought her, nor will she be happy until I have given her the magic for reaching Belmair,” Kaliq assured the young man.