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I didn’t mention the fact that I only want to forget Rose, of course. Why would anyone want to know about my heartbreak?
My wily and beautiful friend Queen Serafina, whose late husband introduced her to complex Eastern magic, opened my eyes to how much magic is hidden even from me in far off overseas domains. But Palm, apparently, though a countrywoman of the local fakirs and sorcerers, knew nothing of such things. Probably her tree had been taken out of there when it was too young, and now I had to create a new home for it by magic. And all because some dragon, be it a dragon, had started attacking my domain. I even suspected the intervention of Princess Odile. Maybe she decided to take revenge for the betrothal she had once broken, waited centuries, and conjured something. Not that she really wanted to marry me, but the thought that she had naively lost all my dragon treasures with me, still did not give her peace.
And I, a simpleton, even began to think about whether to support her financially. The thing is, I had flown over her kingdom more than once, and I began to notice that over the centuries it had become noticeably impoverished. It was because Odile’s mortal husband, the king, had died and could no longer support his immortal and eternally young wife, who was always short of money, with riches from the tomb.
Even though I was a dragon, I loved doing charity work. I supported not only friends, but also former detractors. For example, Simon’s society, and even Baptiste de Villiers and the detective Gabriel, who had hunted me in Roshen. But whoever set such an attack on me as the fire-breathing beast that burned my domain, I would grind to powder with my own hands. To hell with charity and compassion, it’s time to restore order. I am first and foremost an Emperor in my Empire, and I must protect it.
“What did the dragon that came at you look like? Did it look exactly like me? Or is it only in color?
The silence became long.
“Well,” the azure nymph shrugged. Her naked skin resembled flowing water. “There’s not much to see when fire from the heavens is raining down on you. I barely managed to slip out of the burning stream. The water was on fire! Can you imagine? Where the creek had been, all that was left was a toxic black sludge.”
“I’m sorry,” I nodded, “but that description won’t help me much in my search for the raider.”
“I thought that dragon was a little smaller than you,” Cypress interjected. “I didn’t get a good look at it, though. And I’m not as sharp as dragons. Humans need a telescope to spot a raider.”
“Is it smaller?” That definition wasn’t much help either.
“Well, he is more elegant. And he didn’t shine as bright as you do. You were like the sun, but his glittering scales were more like moonlight. I turned around as I ran away from him across the field and noticed his eyes were emerald, not aquamarine like yours when you turn. As soon as I looked right into them, he covered his mouth for some reason, even though he was about to rain fire down on me. And he had spikes on his head in the shape of a crown. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a crown of thorns. Even you don’t seem to have one. Or you’ve decided to transform yourself with a little magic.”
Cypress didn’t know what to insult me with and what not to, so she stuttered at every phrase.
“It is a crowned dragon! It’s truly amazing,” I didn’t even believe her, but if she had an accurate look at it, I now had a clue where to look for it. I’ll have to look in the ancient volumes in my library. There’s probably some mention of such a creature somewhere. It could have been hibernating for a long time, like in the mountains, and now it’s awake. Such beasts wake up either from a century-long hunger, then after satiating a couple of villages, they fall asleep again. Worse, if they have been slumbering in the vents of a volcano, and the fire within them has grown to an unbearable burning. Then the dragon will not rest without burning most of the world. It’s time to take action. It’s just strange why, after attacking a couple times, it’s disappeared, and I haven’t heard of any new fires yet.
Just 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 to turn into a dragon, soar into the air, and pounce on him in flight. My fangs would sink into his throat. My claws would scratch his scales bloody. He’ll fall to the ground, and then I’ll take him down. So, what’s stopping me? The sudden feeling that as soon as I knock the enemy out of the sky, I’ll have Rose’s bloody corpse on the ground at my feet instead of a dragon carcass? I can’t believe what’s going through my head. Rose could have sent that dragon to me. One of the spirits told her I was having fun with the dryads and she got jealous. She’s out for revenge. I don’t think she’ll be happy that I mutilated her servant.
But I can’t just let him go. They’ll think I’m cowardly or inferior in strength. I don’t think so. The dragon was indeed very graceful and flexible. With brute strength, it would be easy to overpower him. It was more beautiful than powerful.
He was no longer in a hurry to spew fire. Wasn’t his goal just to lure me out of the castle for a meeting? It was only for that purpose that he had begun to scorch the fields. He was now planning over the towers and had no thought of breathing out fire again. He seemed to like my castle. The dragon hovered above the tallest spire for a long moment. His claw touched the standard with my emblem on it. The claw glittered like a real moon. I even felt a sudden longing for the night and the glow of the moon.
“Go ahead, attack again, and that will be an invitation to a fight,” I whispered to myself, but the dragon suddenly looked at me. Our eyes met. For a moment, I felt as if I were immersed in an emerald swamp from which there was no escape. It enveloped me like green honey. It seemed to me that I was drowning in this swamp, and above it the moon was shining brightly until my eyes hurt, and I was repeating some woman’s name that I did not know at all. I think it was:
“Sephora!”
I repeated it aloud, and some leprechaun, on which I almost stepped with my foot, squeaked and bounced away.
What’s the matter with me? I used to control myself and never hurt anyone, even accidentally. Especially crumbs like the Leprechauns, who hoarded their gold in holes in the fields like mice or moles.
The moon dragon stared at me for another long minute. Like a fool, I stood there and did nothing, even as the raider turned and flew away. To the mountains! Well, now I knew where to look for him. The high mountains beyond the forests were very often a haven for all sorts of suspicious creatures who had slipped through the magical borders unbeknownst to them. No wonder the arsonist flew to hide there. That’s where I’ll find him, but not tonight.
My head was spinning after what I’d seen. It felt like I was surrounded not by a burned field, but by a molten liquid emerald marsh that stretched as far as the eye could see, with the moon, not the sun, hanging over it. The moon is bifurcated. Or is it suddenly the moon and the sun merging into one?
I was brought to my senses only by the concerned murmurings of the dryads. They were all awake, dressed and out in the courtyard. The traces of the recent fire frightened them and made them whisper excitedly.
“Remember, you promised to grow new houses for us,” Cypress, the most sensible of the dryads, returned to the problem at hand.
“Of course, if I promised, I’ll do it,” I began to think about where it would be better to grow new trees for them to live in: right here on the burned grass or further away from here and closer to the forests.
“Where’s Perla?” I’m missing an azure nymph.
“She’s taken up residence in the shell-shaped fountain in your greenhouse,” Palma explained. “I would have taken up residence there too, but there’s nowhere to put down roots. I don’t want to ruin the castle parquet.”
I nodded.
“There’s a peach grove nearby and a beautiful lake behind it, and I think there’s plenty of room for everyone to plant a new tree. And the climate there is wonderful, I mean magical, both palms and birches will take root.”
Bamboo, bored, made a fan of her leaves, waved it around and nodded enthusiastically.
“Well, take us there,” she suggested.
Take us there? Do they really want me to turn into a dragon right in front of them and put them on my scaly back? Did the sight of a moonlit arsonist turn them off dragons at all? Somehow I didn’t even want to think about turning right now, but my night mistresses were waiting, and I couldn’t say no to them. If they wanted to fly on a dragon’s back and prick themselves on its sharp scales once in a lifetime, then so be it.
Dream of a Rose
I dreamed that Rose and I were getting married again. This time everything was as it should be. The chapel was in the castle, not on the moors. Lighted candles in floor candelabras cast in the shape of sirens that came to life and could replace the wedding choir with their singing if they wanted to. Pixies dance on the stained glass windows. There are no other guests because Rose doesn’t like her family, and I have no family at all. The last thought makes me feel better for some reason for the first time. It’s scary when the rotting dead rise from their graves and come to a wedding, even if it’s in a dream. Though perhaps what was missing here was a half-rotting but festively dressed Florian who had risen from the ground overnight.
Yes, we were married at night, just as we had been last time, but it suited our tradition, unlike mortal rites. For the first time we wore real wedding clothes, pure white. In reality I had never dressed up in snow-white brocade, but in my dream it really suited me. The white color set off the crown perfectly, which I didn’t normally wear either. Except that Rose’s wedding dress looked a little old-fashioned. Such outfits with wide sleeves and a simple bodice were worn by ladies to jousting tournaments a couple hundred years ago. I’ve never seen such cuts since. The train was too long, flowing like a cloud across the floorboards. A gold sash with dragon-head pendants hung loosely just below her waist. I couldn’t see Rose’s face clearly, only her dark curls, her lashes bent upward, and the long gold earrings in her ears – the only jewelry on the bride, aside from the sash. The earrings were unusual – two small dragon-like serpents coiled in the branches of roses. Only an unearthly jeweler could have made them. The snakes didn’t come to life or move, but they looked both beautiful and threatening.
I put my arm around Rose’s waist to get a better look at them. The thick veil was in my way. I wanted to pull it away from Rose’s face. Suddenly someone’s claws were at her shoulder level. Not my claws, but dragon claws, too. They waited a second, and then they grabbed both gold pendants and easily ripped the earrings from her ears. It was just a moment, and only blood was left on the veil. I had no time to do anything, nor could I.
It was only a dream.
In the library at the castle, there were several puffy volumes on dreams written by humans. Percy had taken them with him after some town had been ravaged by magical creatures and brought them to my library. They’d taken root here, and their bindings looked a little different, but that didn’t change the fact that they’d come here from human hoards. But I didn’t care anymore. I was eager to learn something from the human books, since I couldn’t from the magical ones.
I had to get to such a point, to look up the meaning of a dream in the books of mortals! It was probably more useful to them, who didn’t know my powers, but I felt a little ashamed.
This is it! The dwarf, temporarily appointed curator here, showed me the right volume. The book itself opened at the right chapter.
Spouses are remarried in a dream, it is a divorce. Well, it’s already happened! We’re already divorced! This dream is way overdue! What kind of prophecy is this that’s sent retroactively? Prophetic dreams are usually made in absentia, not after the event they predicted has already happened. Something doesn’t add up here. Maybe there’s another interpretation of the same symbols?
What else is there? I read a whole list of interpretations, but none of them fit. But the pages of the book suddenly slipped out of my fingers and opened on the article “earrings”. The meanings were also numerous, but only one thing stressed me out. To pluck earrings from someone’s ears meant to take the place of a rival. In my dreams, someone’s glistening claws ripped the earrings out of Rose’s ears. Someone wants to take her place? Well, it’s free. You don’t have to take anything away from her.
“It is except your heart,” whispered a voice from the book. I’d forgotten that all the books in here can talk. If you get caught up in reading them, you can hear voices, and the bindings on the binding fold into the shape of talking lips.
“My heart is sort of sank,” I reminded myself of the night with the dryads. I felt a little uncomfortable remembering how much fun I’d had.
“Do you want to know the difference between giving your heart and giving your body?”
“I haven’t felt passion for anyone in hundreds of years, if we’re having this conversation,” though it was silly to talk about such things with a book. What does it know about me?
“And you’ve never been intimate with mortal beauties?”
“Of course it is not. I’ve never even been close to fairies.”
“You know how to start a fire with one breath, but you don’t know what passion is?” A little voice boomed out.
“Is it passion, like people have for each other?” I wiggled my golden eyebrows expressively. “I’m ashamed to admit it, but I don’t know.”
“And you didn’t enjoy last night with the sorceresses, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“And you want to know the power of passion for human women and the pleasure of being with them.”
To forget Rose?
“I suppose I do.”
“Well, is there one way, shall I tell you?”
I nodded discreetly. The lips on the binding spoke to me, and I replied politely. What had loneliness brought me to? I had little faith in the voices from the pages before, but now I was suddenly indulging them. When the beady lips gave me another piece of advice, I decided to follow it.
To take communion in blood
To ignite a man’s passion, one need only drink from a marvelous cup. The bas-reliefs on it are hung in the form of human and winged bodies. This is what happens when two races come together: human and magical. At the bottom of the thicket, gems grew from the bottom like droplets. From them came a quiet whisper and a glow. Any elixir that you splash on them would immediately acquire one special quality from their influence. But I decided to be on the safe side. The infusion was made for me in the now-abandoned temple where I’d first met Noel. It was now in the middle of nowhere. Behind it, the heath was in full bloom. They say heather flowers symbolize loneliness. I was going to change the meaning of the symbol, so heather was added to wine, the wine mixed with blood and magic elixirs. I flew to the wasteland without spilling the cup, sat down and drank. The infusion didn’t taste bitter, but it wasn’t sweet either. It was a tart taste, a pleasant sensation, no warmth. Contrary to expectations, my throat didn’t burn.
Being with one woman was lonely, too. I needed many. Time to live the life I’d been meant to live all along.
It means many women, many lovers. Shouldn’t that be the order of things for an emperor with many treasures.
My father, however, behaved differently. But he’s an angel. Even fallen angels have their own traditions. One Rhiannon was enough for him. I was in a hurry to forget one Rose. That’s easy to do. If the society of fairies and dryads doesn’t do much for her, then all you have to do is go to the cities of mortals. There would probably be many more of these sorceresses who would comfort me from my breakup with Rose, and whose company would make my nights unforgettable.
I’ve always behaved too primly. I should have gone into debauchery at a young age. I can imagine how disgusted Princess Odile would have made me if she’d known I’d come straight from a brothel to meet her. Yes, and her father, Prince Wizard Rothbert, wouldn’t have been so eager to match me with her if he’d known I wasn’t so impeccable in my manners. It is one thing to shoot fire or cast handfuls of charms, and quite another to spend all your accumulated gold on minxes. I’ve never had a favorite until now. It’s time to find them. I knew from experience that if you give a lady a couple of compliments, she won’t be frightened when you turn into a dragon in front of her eyes. It is Queen Seraphina, for example. I was her protector for a long time.
My romance with the queen and her romance with the dragon didn’t last very long. Besides, we never really got serious. There were only words, fleeting embraces and kisses, and a circle of black spirits who settled at her throne and watched us with the zeal of spies. We never actually made it to the king’s bed. And then the magical flute player Nolan came to the kingdom. With his music he could hold back entire armies and make them throw themselves off cliffs or send storms to drown entire armadas. In short, he could move all of Seraphina’s enemies with music easier than I could with fire. Naturally, with such a servant, the queen no longer needed the dragon. And so we parted ways. Serafina made Nolan her new favorite, and I took flight. It’s a shame that even she, for all her capricious nature, managed to find her true love, and I never did. You just have to look harder! And the main thing is not to look at those who look like Serafina, Odile or Rose. Such capricious women are nothing but trouble. I want girls who are refined but balanced. They won’t shake their fists in jealousy and set magical traps to teach me fidelity.
It’s a shame I’ve always had to deal with sorceresses. It’s much easier to deal with delicate and defenseless girls who don’t practice any sorcery. They need a protector, which I could be. Percy hinted at paying attention to the dour girls. They tend to be grateful to anyone who looks after them. I suppose he’d drawn that conclusion from his own experience, but it wasn’t much to my taste. I had a preference for pretty girls.
“It is just like a Beauty Lover!”
Who said that? I turned around. No one! The street of Veon I’d flown into was completely empty. Not even the windows of some art gallery were glowing with evening lights.
Nevertheless, a question immediately popped into my mind: who was this Beauty Worshiper? A local patron of the arts who collects paintings? Then no wonder he was so nicknamed. In the gallery one could notice only portraits of beauties, and not only mortal women, but fairies as well.
“He collects them like you collect statues,” the voice whispered again, as if an annoying bug had landed on my collar and was buzzing in my ear.
The statues in my castle were all once live girls. And here they’re just portraits. Still, such a comparison would make a person uncomfortable, but I’m used to all kinds of magic. Nothing surprises me.
“There is something! Get inside!”
I finally noticed some sort of glowing insect on the extinguished lantern. It looked like a snail with an orange shell on its back. It glowed like a tiny flashlight. A curious beckoner! But I wasn’t drawn to the gallery. They’re just portraits, and I’m looking for living women. I don’t need drawings and ghosts.
Where do you find live women if not at an assembly? I went to the first one I could find. Here’s a great place to meet. I don’t need an invitation. With my magic, I’m welcome everywhere, and any door opens for me. The place was full of beautiful ladies. Their cavaliers were no competition for me. I knew that if I beckoned to them, they would follow me obediently. It wasn’t just magic. The charms of fallen angels had always captivated women. And the fact that I am a slumbering dragon, in love affairs does not prevent me at all. But as soon as the hostess looked at me, and I felt almost in love, the dragon inside me stirred angrily. He was reflected in the full-length mirror on the wall. It was a blessing that Simonetta, the organizer of the assembly, didn’t see him. Even if she did, it didn’t scare her away at all.
The elixir of blood and heather seems to be working as it should. The attraction is so strong that there are no more barriers, and it doesn’t matter that the dragon inside me is furiously moving its claws and trying to get out. I’m certainly not going to burn the lady I like.
A gust of wind blew open the window, extinguishing all the candles in the nearest candelabra. How like the intervention of someone’s magic! Even if it is Rose, let her be jealous. I don’t care. I should teach her a lesson someday. I exhaled a thin stream of flame to re-light the extinguished candles. Simonetta looked at me with the same sympathy. Beside her, a dozen other beauties had also taken a fancy to me. I could recognize their names before they were introduced to me. There were Leonella, Barbara, Jodetta, Irena, Felina, Jeanine, Marietta… The names swirled in my head like fall leaves. They were as varied and beautiful as the ladies. Brunettes, shades, redheads, blondes, curly or slender, green-eyed or brown-eyed, swarthy or white-faced – I liked them all. For the first time I chose Lisette, a mischievous coquette who beckoned me from the noisy hall to a secluded boudoir. The cup with the bloody elixir appeared in my hands. I offered the girl a drink.
“Is it communion with blood?” She was surprised.
“What do you mean?” I was as surprised as she was.
“That’s what all the followers of St. Augustine do.”
Oh, then it’s no wonder she confused witchcraft with communion. Though, in fact, religion and witchcraft are two sides of the same coin, like God and the devil. Something one means good, something the other evil, but not everything is perfectly simple.
“They put blood in the communion cup to inflame the passion in the parishioners they’re attracted to,” Lisette explained, as if she’d been through something like this herself. “But I like you as you are. Whoever you are, you are very handsome.”
