Dame Dragon
Natalia Yacobson

Translator Natalia Lilienthal

© Natalia Yacobson, 2023

© Natalia Lilienthal, translation, 2023

ISBN 978-5-0060-6452-2

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Magic evidence

From the writings of Edwin, emperor of all magical creatures and lord of the Dragon Empire

Lady Camilla’s bloodstained earrings lay on the table in front of me. The large diamonds glittered dimly under the blood that had not yet set. It was strange how two exquisite pieces of jewelry that had once been so admired could now provoke horror. No one wished to keep them. They were brought to me. I remembered perfectly the day I had seen them still in the ears of their rightful owner. She was a charming woman: delicate and graceful. Expensive jewelry suited her very well. And she was justifiably proud of it. Especially she was proud of those earrings. Not only because of their beauty and cost, but also because of some long history associated with them. Rumor had it that they were made for her by an unearthly jeweler at the request of a lover… It was a very romantic story with a touch of magic.

And now a dragon’s claws have ripped those earrings from her ears. Not my claws!

I sat and stared at the shimmering jewels for a long time. Somehow the blood on them seemed to me even more tempting than the diamonds themselves. I vividly pictured the sharp claws, each larger than a large mace, reaching up to Camilla’s horrified face, scratching her cheeks and greedily tearing the gold pendants right out of her flesh. I’ve always marveled at the custom of women piercing their ears to insert the hooks of earrings directly into living flesh. Why was the torture? The shiny pendants were begging for someone to rip them right out of their earlobes along with the blood and flesh. And someone did. Only this time, it wasn’t me. But hadn’t I done the same thing myself in the past?

The jewels that glittered enticingly on the necks and ears of ladies often attracted me. Perhaps even more than women’s beauty can attract me. Sometimes, I seduced only to turn into a dragon, snatch the jewelry and fly away, leaving the victim only a lot of scars in the places where rubies or sapphires were shining before. Not that I was greedy, but the glitter of gems suddenly captivated me and I acted on instinct.

And then someone else began to repeat my actions.

Another dragon!

How long it had been since the others had been seen or heard of. Even the rumors of them had lost their relevance. And then a half-crazed woman with a burnt face swore before she died that a dragon breathed on her face.

Rumors immediately spread through the neighborhood. Those who knew me knew perfectly well it wasn’t me. First of all, I didn’t care about Lady Camilla and her meager wealth. Secondly, I hadn’t been out of the castle for days. I had a country to run. And now I had a rival. It was a creature as strong as I was, but out of my control. It struck a direct blow – made known. I had to do something about it.

When my subjects brought me the bloody earrings, they were only warning me against inaction. It wasn’t the earrings themselves; the problem was the creature that had begun to act in the same ways I had. And, apparently, it possessed the same powers I did. Recently, it had begun to raid without separating human settlements from the habitats of the super beings. In addition to the dead, there were many disgruntled and injured. Everyone expected me to do something about it.

But for some reason, I was strangely indifferent. I looked at the fresh blood scarlet on my earrings and felt a bit hypnotized. Perhaps the dragon, unknown to me, had done the right thing. It was high time to instill fear in both humans and non-humans. It had been so long since I had committed any atrocities.

The earrings torn from the dead woman’s ears seemed like an act of justice to me, too. She had no right to wear them. They were indeed made by an unearthly master. Now that the blood had begun to soak into the surface of the stones, I noticed it too, as others had noticed and gossiped before. No reason to spread unnecessary gossip about us across the land. There are plenty of curious ones already.

In fact, I needed to think about how to capture and subdue another dragon. But I was in no hurry to set spells and snares. A girl I’d never seen before persisted in my mind. Half of her face was covered vertically by a patterned mask. Her eyes were like gems implanted in flesh. Her appearance superseded all other thoughts.

Like a ghost, she flickered beside me every time I was alone in the darkness, alone with the sparks of the fire dying out in the fireplace. She seemed as capable as I was of breathing fire and lighting a sorcerer’s flame right on the coals.

She would have loved the trophy that now lay before me. And the sight of blood on the jewelry would captivate her, not frighten her. On a sudden impulse, I leaned over the tabletop and licked the blood off the earrings. After all this time, it hadn’t clotted yet, but it wasn’t warm anymore. It wasn’t much, but the familiar taste made the beast in me wake up again.

Predictions

Rose and I parted ways for good. She had settled into her Black Magnolia Manor somewhere in the meanest corner of the human world, I had stayed in the Magic Empire, and I could consider myself a happy bachelor. Outwardly, I was very handsome and young, and I knew I would never age a year. I could choose whoever I wanted to keep me company, but I had grown accustomed to solitude. It did not prevent me from enjoying life; on the contrary, in the absence of an all-consuming love for one object, everything around me seemed to become more beautiful. I lay in the fields of hops and lazily watched the leprechauns milling about in the thickets. They were hiding or looking for gold. I had more than I could count. And if we talk about romantic pursuits, Rose is not the only beauty in the whole world. I’ve recently begun to notice far more beautiful fairies than her in my Empire. I wonder where they used to be. Probably right under my nose, I was just too blind and obsessed with one person to pay attention to anyone else. Falling in love blinds people and even creatures like me. It makes one person seem more beautiful and desirable than all the other creatures in the universe. It’s just self-deception, like witchcraft.

I used to be stupefied like all those creatures. They fell asleep in the fields of this hop. A couple of leprechauns, regardless of the danger, sneezed at the pungent odor and began to fall asleep right beneath the soles of my boots. One dozed right under my palm between my fingers. I squeezed it in my fist, but it didn’t even squeak, except to snort. Yeah, the hops in my fields are pretty stupefying. If a village fool had been lucky enough to come here, he could have easily caught the leprechaun and claimed his treasure, if he had not fallen asleep earlier.

I was only slightly intoxicated by the stupefying aroma, and that was only because I was in a melancholy mood today. The sun was shining brightly, even too brightly. I felt good about the fact that I was finally alone and that I didn’t have to worry about anyone else. No matter how I looked at it, the flighty and unscrupulous Princess Rose was the biggest problem in my century-long life. And since my life was endless, I couldn’t, like mortals, get rid of an annoying marriage by simply going to my grave. The only way was to get a divorce and forget about Rose like a festering wound that suddenly healed.

It would be worth throwing a grand party for the entire Empire to celebrate my release. The only hindrance was that because of the feast, they might think that I was going to choose a new ruler, or at least a favorite. I didn’t want that just yet. The solitude was too pleasant. I am my own master again. The dragon no longer has a mistress, no object of worship. Only treasure, power, irresistible strength, and undying youth remained. And somewhere in the back of my mind there was a dark feeling that I had lost the most valuable of my treasures.

It was a feeling that could be dealt with. It was foolish to compare a half mortal woman to the most expensive of my jewelry or the most exquisite of the sculptures that adorned my castle. My treasury hadn’t suffered at all after Rose left, even though the former empress had tried to take as much wealth as possible with her. She still sent servants to demand more money from me. I never refused her, because the gold in my coffers never ran out anyway. In the past, her extravagance couldn’t ruin me either. I could manage my business well with magic, but that wasn’t the reason for my wealth.

I threw my head back and looked straight into the blazing sun. My eyes hurt for just a moment, or maybe it just seemed that way. The sun can’t burn me. After all, I came from it. The light of the dawn, the son of the dawn, Dennitsa… my father! The sun is a part of him since time immemorial, gold is his substance, scattered at the fall all over the world, so no wonder it all belongs to me. I should be pleased with myself, with my high and inhuman origin, my luxurious possessions and my limitless power over all living things. Father had ceded his place to me, and still I wanted to see him. To feel the touch of his wing again, to look into his eyes, the color of the azure sky, to look at the face of the angel who had once been by far the most beautiful of all.

Many times when I fell asleep, I hoped that I would dream of him again, but I never dreamed of him again. It was as if a life-giving spring had stopped flowing, renewing me in some way. I was just Edwin again. Everything divine was gone with Madeel. I was just a young man, a dragon with an unusually handsome face and untold treasures that I not only guarded, but continued to hoard.

The sun was at its zenith. I stared at it for so long that the sun’s disk began to double in my eyes. My curls, like golden rye, scattered across the grass. The smell of hops was stupefying. It was stronger now.

I fell asleep and had a strange dream. In this dream I was half human and half dragon. The transformation was not complete. I was still wearing my camisole, but my limbs were dragon-like. The claws seemed especially sharp, and the lady in front of me was fragile and defenseless. I easily ripped the earrings from her ears with my claws before I realized I was ripping the earrings from Rose’s ears. Blood trickled down her neck from the torn earlobes, bright and scarlet. It stood out starkly against her pale skin. I suddenly realized that it was no longer skin, but marble. It was just a marble bust in front of me, not Rose. But its earlobes were chipped.

I woke up with the feeling that the earrings that had been ripped from Rose’s ears were still in my hands. Of course, it was just a feeling after a vivid dream. They say there are prophetic dreams. Or is that just a misconception? Who should I ask when only I should know everything without error? I’m the one to go to for advice and dream interpretation. In my castle chambers, unlike the court of my mortal foster father, there were no sullen astrologers or alchemists. I was the only one who decided everything here. No predictions and no fear of the pressure of prophecy. My power was absolute, I had nothing to fear. The future was I and my power, everything else was the past.

Everyone internalized this well, and no one objected. My subjects respected me and feared me. But now I myself would have to be afraid. The dream was frighteningly realistic. It was truly prophetic. It was brought upon me by the vengeful Rose herself. She’d been practicing witchcraft at the highest level for a long time, and though I’d done her no wrong, she was always looking for some reason to get back at me.

Only now I felt no one invading my mind. No one was trying to bewitch me or annoy me for petty reasons. I easily recognized the magical influence on me and reflected it with my charms like a shield. It would be turned toward the one who cast it. Everyone knew how dangerous it was to invade my mind or try to bewitch me. That was the only reason why I didn’t fall victim to the spell of all the local sorceresses who were ready to take the vacant place of the empress. I could be attracted by their beautiful faces, but their charms against me were completely useless.

Only Rose I forgave everything, so she tried to attack me more than once. But it wasn’t her now. The dream seemed dangerous and prophetic.

The sun was still shining brightly, but it was as if a dark cloud had fallen over me. I looked across the field, which seemed almost endless. The maple forest was black on the side, and some of the small leaves on the maples were pure gold, but no one dared to tear them off. In this part of my country, a clear day never ended because the sun was always at its zenith. And some things or plants here had the property of turning to gold by themselves. But if someone tried to steal them, they would become grass or leaves again. I could only give someone a precious gift of my own accord. You can’t sneak anything from me. Anyone who steals from a dragon is likely to take rot instead of gold, as well as his own misfortune and death.

Perhaps that was the only reason why the dwarf, who was traveling south with a loaded cart, looked enviously at the charms of the surrounding plains, but dared not touch anything. At first I mistook him for one of Rose’s messengers, so I wouldn’t even stop him if he picked a golden plant or two. Rose sent her servants here so often for more gold that I had gotten used to letting load their carts or baskets or canvas sacks in silence, because I knew that the sooner they could satisfy her appetite, the sooner they would be out of here. I had never even once conveyed to her with the messengers the advice to use her own sorcery rather than my savings to accomplish her goals. Ever since we’d met, I’d been in the habit of sharing everything I had with her. I must have done it for nothing, because it didn’t make her any kinder.

The last thing I wanted to do was talk or bargain with her messenger. So when the ragged gnome approached, I just laid down deeper in the grass, almost crushing the leprechauns, who were tangled in my hair and sleeping sweetly. They squeaked resentfully, attracting his attention.

By etiquette, he should have bowed to me as soon as he came within sight of the hop fields, or not set foot in them at all. It was mainly because of his tactlessness that I mistook him for Rosa’s servant. Her entourage was always remarkably loose. Well, and also shabby. Even with plenty of money, Rose never spent a penny on her subjects. It was her rule. Her servants were always hungry, thieving, hustling, and very poorly dressed. The dwarf’s tattered and slightly scorched clothes were a pity.

If he hadn’t been Rose’s servant, I might have helped him. I felt obliged to look after the welfare of my subjects. Therefore, there were no needy within my Empire. All the needy remained in Rose’s retinue. Strangely, both Rose and I had been raised in the royal court, where we were both supposed to be accustomed to mercy and charity, as well as caring for all who obeyed us. Although I was wrongly considered the youngest son, deprived of the right to inherit the throne, the educators managed to instill in me a desire to care for the welfare of all my subjects. Rose was born and raised as the sole heir to the throne. She wanted to ruin and offend absolutely everyone. She acted like a bitter abandoned spouse who was ready to tear and throw without any reason, and she seemed to have no reason to do so. She was the one who left me, not me who drove her away.

The dwarf also behaved like a very frightened and battered creature, but he had nothing to fear here. I’ve never hurt anyone in my empire. And I certainly never attacked anyone who wouldn’t hurt me first.

I decided it was my duty to stand up and explain to him that all subjects of the Empire were under my protection. By subjects, in this case, I meant all those who had left me to serve Rose at her new estate, which stood at the crossroads where magical roads intersected with those of mortals. For that reason, Diarmand Manor was hard to find, even for me. It had been called that before, but now it was better known as the Palace of Black Magnolias, as it was overgrown with flowers that were alive and hungry for travelers’ blood.

I was curious to find out from the dwarf the latest news: how many travelers had gone missing in those lands in recent days, how many surrounding villages had fallen under Rosa’s spell, how many noblemen who lived nearby had perished from her charms. Since I myself have already been freed from her oppression, I would only laugh at the way she tortures others. Besides, I liked to talk to dwarves about things I had loved since my human youth.

Except that the dwarf’s reaction to my courtesy was extremely unexpected. When I was about to get up, he jumped up on the spot, squeaked something like that he apologized for everything in advance and asked not to touch him, and was so. The only thing was the dust on the path, on which he ran away from me, and at a speed with which birds do not fly.

Wow! I remember that chubby dwarves like him were always extremely clumsy. Who knows, maybe he was lucky enough to get some speeding boots or some other magic item that allowed him to become an unrivaled runner. He had to give up the cart, though.

I reluctantly got up and looked inside. To my surprise, there was no treasure. So the dwarf wasn’t afraid of being denounced as a thief for embezzling the dragon’s treasury. Apparently, he hadn’t even come close to my treasury. The cart was loaded only with household goods and some unpretentious tools that were usually used for work in the mines. Gee, I thought he was afraid he’d run into my claws in his rush to satisfy Rosa’s greed. But it looks like he’s just going to relocate. But he did feel guilty about acting so cautiously. Maybe it was the shadow of the dragon in my eyes that scared him. Some people were said to have the gift of seeing it right above my head. It seemed especially creepy on a sunny day, since it was pitch black.

With nothing to do, I decided to follow the gnome. His footprints were still clearly visible in the road dust, and where the chain of footprints broke, I resorted to magic. It showed me by a golden thread the way to the very depths of the forest where the rogue had evidently lived before he met me.

There was indeed a tiny door in the trunk of an oak tree. It had been locked with magic before, like any such dwelling, but now it stood open. The dwelling had an abandoned look. There was a strong smell of fumes. There was some kind of experimentation going on here that had led to an explosion in an underground mine that was most definitely located deep beneath these grounds. I peered through the open door. Inside everything was coal-black. The stairway down was almost all burned out. The oak tree itself, scorched from the inside, had not collapsed only because of a spell cast on it long ago. No wonder why the owner of the house was in such a hurry to leave the place.

I should have helped the poor man and repaired the place with magic. I prepared to do so, but the smell of burnt grass reached my nostrils. I looked around and found that the trees nearby were standing with burnt branches. Curious, who would allow a forest fire on my property?

I walked a little farther and there were dozens of fallen, scorched trees. The dryads must have died in them! Would I be able to bring them back to life? I touched the scorched bark lightly, and it crumbled to ash beneath my fingers. The smell of burning was no less alarming than the noxious black vapors over the soil. Only dragon fire could smell like that! But I wasn’t burning anything here. Was I drunk and didn’t realize what I was doing. No, I immediately dismissed that notion. When I drink, I don’t usually get tipsy. It’s a peculiarity of mine. Still, the flattering ashes were very reminiscent of the aftermath of a quick dragon raid. The many burned trees looked like the houses of a ravaged settlement, with at least one spirit living in each trunk. What kind of scoundrel could have released a spell that caused such damage? Besides, the wretch was so strong and reckless that he dared to ride into my territory. The suspicion of Vincent was very strong. He must have found some way to break down all the magical barriers to the Empire from his return and seek revenge on me for sending him away. The idiot didn’t realize how easily I could snap his neck. He’d gained at the School of Witchcraft the meager experience, of which he was quite proud. He was quickly kicked out of the school, but he was easily the bane of anyone foolish enough to make contact with him. In this case, it was my curse.

The entire lawn behind the woods was burned. It used to be fragrant with forget-me-nots and a stream of healing water. Now it was only the scorched to ashes soil that gave off such noxious fumes as if a black monster had lain beneath it.

A memory immediately struck my head: a whole scorched country that had once flourished, and then there was nothing left but poisonous soil that would never bear fruit again, and underneath the layers of which a huge black monster was burrowing. That country was my homeland. Now there was no life in it, except for the ash monsters that swallowed ships lost at sea.

The memory was very unpleasant, and I hurried away from the scorched meadow. I’ll come back here later and use magic to fix it. For now, I needed to get out and about. It would be nice to catch the dwarf and ask him what was going on. But he’s gone to ground. Maybe he decided to go down to the Underground City, where Henri would catch him and bring him back.

The road back to the fields of hops and poppies was short. If it hadn’t been for the bloody trail dragging along it, it would have been a pleasant walk. I noticed the chain of blood. Not too bright, almost a woody hue, it looked more like the blood of a dryad than anything else. I looked around for the injured party, but only spotted a stunted mushroom fairy, looking more like a little girl wearing a huge mushroom-shaped hat on her head. To my surprise, she was crying. Usually these creatures are very cheerful, especially when there’s an opportunity for mischief.

“Why are you doing this, Monsignor?” She sobbed. “Why did you have to burn our clearing, aren’t there enough mortal kingdoms?”

“What do you mean?” I looked at her carefully, but she carefully hid her crying mushroom-colored eyes from me. “I haven’t burned anything in years,” and it was true, I was careful to keep the flames inside me, even though it was hard at times. The fire was like a rabid monster, and it took a lot of self-concentration and a lot of unauthorized charms to fight it. “Besides, it’s against my rules to start fires in my own Empire.”

“Is it really?” She looked at me questioningly. It was clear she didn’t believe a word I said. Strange, because usually no one doubted the truth of my words, let alone my orders.

“Go to some party, take some comfort. Tears are not good for you,” I said, and with a bit of enchantment I pulled out a shining flower from the void, covered with gems instead of dewdrops. A generous gift, but I liked the mushroom fairy’s pretty face, so I decided to please her. For a moment she hesitated to accept it from my hands, obviously expecting a trick. It’s a gift from the dragon. Now I’m giving her a beautiful thing, and in a second I’ll turn, grab her in my claws and take her to some black tract for reprisal. The pretty girl pondered, shuffling from foot to foot, and then quickly snatched the flower from my hands, curtsied, and was gone. Was the girl afraid of me? Not so long ago, absolutely everyone liked me. My handsome face and the power of a dragon hidden behind it had attracted a lot of people, not to mention my treasures. And now something subtly changed. I was becoming feared. I felt it most sharply when I went out into the field, where the leprechauns were rummaging in the grass. Most of them were working diligently, plucking straw, tying it into small sheaves and carrying it underground, probably to spin gold from it. They knew how to do that. Others just did round dances to make the crops sing better. Such were their charms and amusements. Usually they didn’t get distracted unless they saw someone nearby who could be pinched to death for trespassing on their territory. Humans were rare in the Empire, and I was everywhere I went. Today, for the first time, when the tiny humans saw me, they stirred, jumped up in their seats, and scurried underground as quickly as if they’d never been here. They even forgot to take off their hats and bow, which was their usual etiquette. Well, I forgave them. I didn’t want to shoot them for such a small thing.

Things were more complicated with the dryad, who was sobbing in a neighboring field. I found her by the bloody trail. A girl with skin partially turned into bark sat on the pressed poppies and wept bitterly. With fists that looked like dry branches, she wiped away brown tears. Her green dress, made of leaves, was visibly scorched. And there was almost nothing left of her legs, which went from her knees to the trunk of the tree as per the rules. As well as from the very tree she lived in. Quite tragic, as the tree was not just a home to her, but a part of herself. What if she couldn’t live without it anymore?

“It was the dragon!” She wailed. “The dragon swooped down and burned down my place. And all the trees around it burned too.”

Unlike the others, she wasn’t frightened when she saw me. She probably hadn’t been out of her tree for thousands of years, and she hadn’t even heard of who I was. Even gossip doesn’t reach hibernating creatures.

I tried to help her up. She seemed to be crawling here, not walking. As I touched her, fresh roots began to grow out of the scorched stumps that could easily replace her legs. In a couple minutes she could walk on them, leaning lightly on my shoulder. Under the long dress, it still couldn’t be seen that she had live tree roots instead of legs.

“Thank you, Monsignor Dragon!”

Her voice sounded like the rustling of leaves. So she knows who I am after all! Then she suppressed her fright because she simply couldn’t run away.

“So you don’t think I burned down your place?”

“I don’t know,” she faltered a little. “That dragon didn’t seem to be gold and…” she pointed to her torn lobe. “He took my earring from me. You wouldn’t do that.”

“And what makes you think that?” I remembered how in the old days I’d robbed mortal kingdoms and taxed supernatural beings. They lived far from the Empire. But I never stooped to ripping jewelry off ladies. She’s right about that.

“It was just copper and carnelian. It would look ridiculous in your treasury. I found it once when I was coming out of the tree.”

“There’s nothing left of your tree?”

She shook her head sullenly. I noticed that one cheek was covered in bark, and her fingers looked more like dry twigs. Still, the dryad was quite pretty.

“I’m Chloe,” she introduced herself with a flirtatious wink. “And I’m not likely to last long, unless there’s a well of life-giving water nearby to help me put down new roots.”

I put my arm around her waist and almost dragged her, trying to remember where there was a well that hadn’t already been inhabited by some malicious creature who had declared himself guardian. The dryad was practically weightless. Walking with her was easy.

“If the well doesn’t work out, I promise I’ll find you a new tree or create one myself,” I promised. That cheered her up. It was important to take care of her now, for she was the injured one, and I could return to the scene of the accident and ask questions later. The ashes of the fire brought some blackness to the sunny day, but I could still enjoy the spring freshness and the scenic views around me. It’s a blessing that the expanse around us isn’t burning yet. It’s strange for me to think so, because I’m used to burning everything, but if this Empire burns down, it’s as if I won’t be there either. At any rate, I’ll be so angry that I’ll probably burn all the mortal domains for it as well. So I well understood Chloe, left without her magical dwelling. There was someone watching us closely from behind, but I didn’t have time to turn around and ask what he wanted from us.

Troubled times

Everyone I wanted to interview came to me. Usually anyone who wanted to report something urgent ended up right in the throne room. They didn’t even have to pass the castle gates. They would appear as if from the ground. This time, the victims acted more cautiously. First, they appeared out of nowhere in the courtyard of the castle. Some brought with them stacks of burnt straw, others charred bricks from their burnt dwellings, one nymph came with torn ears that were missing two earrings. Here I realized at once what was the matter?

The beautiful woman sat down in a curtsy, as if casually pointing to the slightly burned hem of her azure dress. It resembled the color of her skin, and was recovering very slowly. Usually all wounds on nymphs and fairies healed as quickly as they did on their bodies. What can you do, the outfit is part of their skin.

The Leprechauns began to complain to me intermittently. Their chorus made my ears ring. The dwarves looked warily at the stakes with the severed heads of my enemies, placed in a semicircle in the courtyard. Each one was barely smoldering to remind them of my victories. I called this circle the Ring of Triumph and was quite proud of it, but the guests trembled at the sight of it. Dragon trophies are not something that can please the faint of heart.

In addition to Chloe came a few more burned dryads, who apparently were also homeless. They dignifiedly introduced themselves to me and sat down in curtsy. Their names, given one by one, were mildly perplexing. Their names were Cypress, Ash, Beech, Aspen, Willow, Cracker, Birch, Elm, and Pine. Apparently, the names echoed the names of the trees in which the lovely creatures lived. The only reminders of their woody origins were the leaves in their hair and a bit of bark on their delicate skin. They were not burned as badly as Chloe, but the roots stretching from under their dresses like trains spread the smell of burning and ash. To me, those roots seemed alive and silently moaning in pain after the burns they had received. What wonders there are in my Empire? But the injured beauties are pitiful. They gathered in an ornate circle, resembling a green wreath, as their dresses were all green, skillfully sewn from leaves. Only the last two dryads, Palm and Bamboo, resembled exotic oriental queens. The huge green leaves in their outfits looked like greenish peacock tails.

“All our houses are ashes. We have nowhere to live,” Cypress complained. “Yesterday we had comfortable shelter in the trunks. We would wither without them, even if you offered to let us stay in your castle.”

“I could plant trees for you in the yard,” I suggested politely. How could I drive away such pretty girls? Let them stay to brighten my loneliness. I clenched my hand into a fist, and huge trees began to grow from the pebbles that littered the courtyard. I wish I’d realized that I was growing them on the site of mass executions. The trunks rose and grew fast, but they bled. The branches groaned and the growths on the limbs took the shape of severed heads.

Those who watched the sorcery were badly frightened.

“Have mercy on us, Monsignor,” Bamboo bowed down on the pebbles of the courtyard. I’d forgotten that in Eastern countries it’s not curtsy, but bowing before sultans or sheiks. The dryad just stretched out on the ground, sweeping the yard with the leaves of her outfit. “We don’t want to turn into bleeding trees.”

“And we don’t want to die,” Palm added timidly. She did not fall down, but lowered her eyes shyly. What magic wind had brought these strange eastern fairies to my Empire? But I was glad to have them. Like all beautiful creatures who could entertain me in Rose’s absence.

I was aware that dryads could only live in the trunks of their own trees, and I could, with the help of charms, grow sprawling trees right in the floor of my castle’s ballroom in a matter of minutes. But if they would rather live in groves or forests, then so be it. I’ll grow new trees for them there. And it’ll only take me a moment to heal their burns. I heal as easily as I burn. We must calm the beauties and invite them all to an evening feast. Afterward, we might have a hot night with dragon fire that would only light the candles but not burn the dryads, and lovemaking. I’m tired of my wife-hater and wanted to have fun, but first we need to deal with the other petitioners: dwarves, leprechauns, and even a couple of burnt trolls.

“We would be glad if the raids would stop,” one dwarf, who was timidly crumpling his hat in his hands, took it upon himself to speak for everyone. The others nodded in agreement.

“I would have stopped them immediately if it had been me. It’s not in my nature to scorch my own state.”

Not everyone believed me. Some even murmured. The country still remembered the appearance of my magic double Simon, who cleverly gave orders for me, and no one could expose him for a long time. True, he didn’t turn into a dragon. But no one paid attention to that at first. The subjects preferred to see me in my beautiful human form. It didn’t occur to anyone to ask me to turn in front of their eyes and scare everyone that way, probably even burn them. So Simon had managed to hide his identity for a long time. But now everything was back to normal. Simon took his place in Roshen in the alliance of magical creatures banished from the Empire by me. Here they would be the local nobility, but in the human world they were merely actors, playing at being evil. Their community was called the Alliance of Magic Talents. I jokingly referred to them as the Union of Beings who had wronged Edwin, who was me. There weren’t many such beings before. You could count them on the fingers of one hand, especially if you had six or seven fingers like dragon claws. But now there was a whole court of the wronged and the dispossessed. And all of them, for some reason, thought that it was none other than me who had wronged them. Even the azure nymph was sulking, though I had long ago touched her cheek and easily healed the ugly burn.

“The dragon that attacked us was also golden like you,” Cypress explained stammering. – Until now, we thought that only those with magical royal blood could turn gold after transformation. After all, color is your distinguishing mark. It symbolizes privilege and high descent – from Madeel himself.”

A scarlet lightning bolt glittered far in the sky, a reminder that a forbidden name had been spoken aloud. The corners of Cypress’ lips bled, as if one of Madeel’s invisible demons had given her a clawed fist on the lips for breaking the rules of conversation. The girl frowned guiltily and began crumpling the green leafy train in her hands as if she had no other concerns.

“I certainly didn’t attack you,” I said. Since when do I have to justify myself to them or explain anything to them? I wonder what kind of dragon put me in this awkward position. Probably it was some strange foreign beast that had escaped from the cage of some eastern sultana and flown into our midst. I remembered my travels in the eastern countries, when I had sought allies and enemies for Queen Serafina, whom I had loved for a short time. Sheikhs, rajahs, sultans or their viziers sometimes kept river and sea dragons in their special pearl cages. They could not be kept captive for long and could not be bribed with caresses. Such creatures did not usually breathe fire, but poisonous water, which put them to sleep and drove them mad. One sultan’s daughter died thanks to such a pet. Those lands stretched far across the oceans, but they were the only lands I had not explored where magic existed. If some dragon I didn’t know had come, it must have come from there. True, I hadn’t seen it yet.

“I’ll fix it,” I promised. But no one really believed me. They’d never disrespected me like this before, and there were only a tiny handful of my subjects here. Maybe I should blow fire on them for good measure. They’ll know not to honor their emperor.

“Maybe you just don’t remember,” Palm murmured uncertainly. “There are means to stupefy even our minds so that we forget something or someone…”

“Is it oriental remedies?” I revived. I hadn’t studied them yet, unlike the local ones, but I could use one to forget Rosa. “Do you know how to make them?”

Palm was even startled.

“I have never given anything like that to anyone,” she immediately began to justify herself.

“That’s not what I mean. I need a cook who can make such tinctures in the castle kitchen. You know how many gory details I want to forget after night raids on mortal lands.”

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.”

The dragon in me is beautiful too. He is golden and winged and his eyes sparkle with amethyst brilliance, but he can breathe fire. Lisette felt the heat of the flames from my nostrils, nevertheless, gently ran her hand through my curls.

“It is like gold!” She said. “To attract a girl you don’t need to use religion like a witchcraft ritual at all.”

But to attract a girl, I had to drink from the cup. So, according to Augustine’s followers, it’s called blood communion. It was just one sip to forget Rose and rekindle my passion for other women. And then the cup was thrown away and Lisette was in my arms. And it didn’t matter that the bas-reliefs on the bowl groaned and moved, and the dragon in the mirror hissed furiously.

Heart in the fire

How strange it was that I fell asleep in a girl’s arms and woke up in a bed showered with ashes. Did I burn something in the night? I don’t remember! In fact, Lisette herself is as good as gone. I don’t remember girls leaving me so quickly. Usually they want to get to know each other. Besides, it’s her house, not mine.

There was a suspicious amount of ash on the sheets. It scattered in clumps under my palms, swirling in the air like black snowfall. Something had definitely burned during the night. But what was it? Was it maybe the canopy? It had burnt holes in places, but the frame itself was intact.

Where’s Lisette?

Particles of ash settled on the tea tray, on the dressing table, on the nightstands, but the room was empty. There was no one hiding in the drawers of the dresser. I kept waiting for a gremlin to pop out of them. In case I was with Rose, that’s what would happen. But this was Lisette’s bedroom, the mortal girl. She didn’t have gremlins.

But down the hall, I noticed cages of colorful parrots. I’d have to ask them where the lady of the house had gone so early. I got up, dressed, and went downstairs. There were no servants to be seen, but the parrots were very happy that someone understood their speech. I understood the language of all animals and beasts, so I could have a long conversation with the brightly colored birds. The parrots turned out to be avid talkers. They reported to me everything that happened in the house and all the lovers the mistress had taken before me. On the subject of the latter they were fond of gloating. But as for the mistress herself, my curiosity as to her whereabouts puzzled them.

“She hasn’t come out yet,” admitted a large parrot with a red crest.

“What do you mean, she hasn’t come out?” She couldn’t have flown out the window. “Surely your mistress is not a magician?”

The parrot almost laughed in his hoarse bird tongue.

“We haven’t seen her since last night,” the other parrots replied politely. “She must be somewhere in the house?”

“Are there no hiding places?”

They shook their colorful heads in the negative.

“All right, I’ll come back and look for her later,” I had no intention of playing hide-and-seek with Lisette. There were plenty of other charming ladies besides her. I didn’t like silly games.

On my way out, I came upon a strange man who was on duty at the fountain, looking at Lisette’s window and making a quick charcoal sketch in a blank sketchbook. An artist! I tried not to socialize with artists after my failed relationship with Marcel. I was still drawn to them, though. I found it kind of magical how they create a drawing out of nothing. All they have in front of them is a blank sheet of paper on which an image gradually emerges. And they don’t need magic to do it. I secretly respected painters. Their talent for drawing was akin to my gift of sorcery.

So when the stranger said hello to me, I returned the greeting. Although everyone knows it’s not customary to greet strangers as if they were longtime friends. But he acted as if he had known me for a long time. He was wearing a long crimson cloak with a silver braid. It was fastened at the shoulder by a buckle in the shape of a manticore. I’ve seen one of these buckles somewhere before.

“I know a wonderful shop nearby that sells beautiful urns and chests for ashes,” he said, pointing with a lump of charcoal to the left.

“And you think I need them?” I wondered if he was mocking me.

“I thought one of the fire fairy urns would be for Mistress Lisette,” the guy looked confused that I didn’t understand him. But I never discussed any purchases with anyone.

“Why would you think that?” I grinned and walked on by. If Lisette was going to buy something outlandish, that was her business. I had enough urns, vases, amphorae, and fortress-shaped chests in my castle, so I wasn’t intrigued by a shabby shop where a suspiciously troll-like creature was selling pottery. Yes, the urns were molded with faces and figures of fairies, gorgons, firewomen, nymphs, and mermaids, but it was nothing unusual to me. Only one vase caught my eye for a moment. On its sides stretched in bas-relief a whole circle of magical creatures. And they were all exclusively female. As if there were no men among us. All these intricate things are clearly made by an admirer of female beauty.

The troll-like and gruff salesman, who noticed me through the window, suddenly took off his hat and bowed low to me. I was able to get a good look at his bald head with its huge ears. A troll indeed! All the things he traded must have been stolen from somewhere, or he must have collected them from the wreckage of estates that had been looted. My subjects liked to be naughty, even though I forbade it. But I didn’t care about prohibitions or laws now. I had other things on my mind. So I walked past the troll without giving him a comment or warning for the future in the form of a fiery sigh that could burn the floor of the shop. Let him go on with his trade. As long as he doesn’t cross me, I’ll leave him alone. I don’t care where he got it.

I was busy looking for more beauties, and I was proud of the fact that I wasn’t looking for them to burn, rob, or throw them off a cliff. That’s how a dragon should behave. And in me again woke up the old prince, who was taught to treat ladies gallantly, and not to wring their necks with claws. In a word, I was looking for girlfriends for love pleasures, and filled myself with the thought that there would certainly be a lot of them. So many that I could forget Rose. And for that I would need a very long list and the girls would have to be one more beautiful than the other.

Somewhere nearby was a kingdom, I think it was called Tioria, whose recent ruler was so fond of ladies that his list of favorites was compared to a collection of jewels from a dragon’s treasury. It was said that he had more mistresses than there were jewels in the dragon’s treasury. I doubted that, because I couldn’t even count all my treasures myself. The magical talents of my spirit treasurers were not enough for that either. But the former king of Tioria had kind of gone broke on the ladies. The kingdom fell into disrepair. Parts of it became ruins and wastelands. I don’t know what happened there, but I certainly didn’t raid it. I used to scorch states to the ground. There’s still some of Tioria left. But the king himself is gone. The king’s castle is a ruin. What can women get you into? We must remember that king, lest we do the same to him. I wasn’t about to spend my fortune on pretty girls. It’s enough for me to have a little fun, to feel free to choose. Being Rose’s pet dragon isn’t very dignified for the emperor. Let her know she’s not the only one.

As soon as I saw the purple train in the streets, my heart shuddered. Could it be Rose wandering around the city and teasing me? Usually, she’s the only one who chooses such bright and luxurious fabrics. But mortals can’t afford them. It would take a pack of pixies or magic spinners to weave such a dress. But the girl turned around and it wasn’t Rose at all. Just a statuesque winged fairy who had come to the city, like me, looking for mortal fools to keep her company for the night and then serve her faithfully.

She caught my eye, and I almost went after her, but a lady passing in a carriage was even more attractive. I read in the groom’s mind that her name was Moriella, and she was going to the neighboring town of Foil, where the art of arms and the trade in silks and spices flourished. The cold northern sea is nearby, and Moriella’s father’s castle stands right on the shore. It’s worth a trip there at your leisure. I was sure that Moriella would be glad to see me, because in the thoughts of the same groomsmen I had read that she was married to an ugly old man and even went to some witch to help her to change her fate. A night with a dragon would do her good. Especially since the dragon can take on a young and beautiful appearance. Lovely girl! I’ll visit her for sure. But it is not now. I’ll wait till next night. In the meantime, there’s plenty of temptation in this city. I was dizzy from the variety of different beauties: dressmakers, cocottes, flower sellers, street theater actresses, bourgeois and noblewomen. I’ve lost count of the pretty faces.

Instead of going to Moriella’s the next night, I spent weeks in the same place. It was a shame that the pretty girls disappeared so quickly, and there was nothing but ash around. But they were always replaced by new ones. I was attracted to everyone, aristocrats and commoners alike. And they all began to be attracted to me at last. All young mortal girls are pretty. I like them all.

“How well I understand you in that,” a voice whispered from the void, and it wasn’t clear which side it was coming from, but it sounded like it was coming from everywhere. “I’m a fan of beauty, too. Only I strive to freeze beauty before old age destroys it, not to burn it, as you do. But we’re still very much alike. We’re like two sides of the same coin. You’re a dragon and I’m your shadow.”

I didn’t pay much attention to the whispers. Let it whisper. Even if he’s the one driving the girls away from me so quickly, I’m still glad he’s creating variety. After all, new girlfriends are taking the place of the tried-and-true. If it weren’t for the silly tradition of being faithful to Rose, I wouldn’t have been alone for a day in all eternity. The girls loved my good looks. Their fingers ran through my gold-colored hair, their eyes gazing lovingly at my angelic face. I had gotten used to how gently girls’ arms embraced me.

“Meanwhile, you’re scorching them,” that whisper again. It’s become intrusive. At another time I would have been wary, but now I was engrossed in another activity. I diligently brushed away the ashes that were still on my camisole, and looked for new encounters with strangers.

I visited elegant salons, boudoirs, bridal apartments, merchant’s houses, and even brothels. And the voice above me kept whispering:

“I understand you so much! I too, in my time, rushed after each of them. And none of them escaped me.”

I looked up, but there was no firefly following me. There were no translucent spirits around either. It was probably the unquiet soul of some maniac talking to me. I haven’t killed anyone myself right now. It’s nice to know that I’m no longer a murderer or arsonist, but just an adventurer. All nobles are like me. They are seeking pleasure, never missing a skirt. So why should I behave any differently?

If Rose had stayed with me, I wouldn’t have had to meet anyone. With her alone, I could spend every night in the arms of another beautiful lady. Each new body would just have her in it. Naturally after she left the used body, it would begin to rot and turn into a skeleton. Rose somehow never kept alive those whose bodies she used. She probably couldn’t enter their minds as long as they remained alive. I didn’t know much about her complex and pernicious magic. Every law I taught her, Rose had broken. That’s partly why we couldn’t stay together. We were a good match, though: I was a dragon and emperor of all evil, she was a princess and the daughter of a sorceress. At first we had a good deal on marriage and her coronation, but ever since Rose decided to dethrone me and keep all the power for herself, we’ve been in a black streak of trouble. That’s how all marriages fall apart; one wants love and the other wants profit.

It’s better to be a bachelor. That way there’s the least risk of getting attached to any one lady.

I didn’t want to be bound by a strong and sincere love anymore. It’s too painful. But it seemed I had sipped too much from the magic cup. No matter how much I walked around, the passion kept growing. A flame was burning inside. It protruded from my body, swirling at my fingertips. Whole tongues of fire were shooting out from under my fingernails into the night. They formed intricate symbols.

“He’s behind you!” whispered to me the spirits that dwelt in the flames. Their voices always sounded like the hissing of fire. I listened to them and turned around. There was no one behind me, of course. Someone had spread a rumor about a dragon raider in the city, and in the evenings people tried to keep their noses out of the street. As if locking inside could save them from the dragon! Yes, he would burn everyone at once, and everyone would burn in his own house.

I didn’t want to grieve and wander around the labyrinth of city streets. What for? If you remember the address of the hostess of the assembly, where you recently visited, it is a sin not to visit her. The closed doors didn’t bother me. I went straight through the third-floor window. And I didn’t have to climb up the chimney to do it. I just flew up.

Simonetta expected me to announce my arrival with a note, but I was already here. The stacks of love letters never sent to me didn’t matter anymore. One had fallen into my claws. Before, I would have come to run my claws down her throat, but now I wanted to know other things. Something I hadn’t wanted or known until now. I ran my fingers through her hair, the color of ripe wheat. It curled in small strands and ran down her back almost to her knees. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were golden, too. Amazing beauty! I pondered for just a moment whether or not she would feel the fire in my breath, and then I bent down and kissed her. Even if it hurt, she wanted it.

Excitement burned stronger than fire. And she was even more attracted to me than I was to her. That’s the way it usually is. Rose was an exception. But Simonetta was an ordinary woman, though as charming as a fine porcelain statuette. Her fingers in expensive rings slid down my chest, deftly unbuttoned my camisole. Apparently, I was no longer the first on her list of overnight guests. But I was the first to be a dragon.

“Who would give their life for one night with a dragon?” whispered the same annoying disembodied voice in my ear. “Not even my magical portraits were as willing to give their lives as your fiery embrace.”

He hissed something else angrily, but I wasn’t listening. Simonetta’s lips pressed against my ear. She, too, whispered fiercely to me something about how long she had waited for me, and what a bastard I was for not coming to her the first night we saw each other, and making her wait. She was all exhausted, for she had never wanted anyone so much as she wanted me, and so on and so forth. I had listened to all this love nonsense dozens of times, but I was still not satisfied. It was different with Simonetta than with the others. The embrace was passionate. The touch was filled with rare tenderness. I really thought what I had done in vain by not flying to her window from the beginning.

The disembodied voice above the hipped canopy was still squeaking resentfully, and on the wide, silk-sheeted bed our bodies were intertwined, moving toward each other. The act of love was glorious, only my fiery seed spewed into Simonetta, burning her from the inside out. She cried out, but I quickly muffled her scream with a long kiss.

I rose and began to dress long before dawn came. I couldn’t sleep in the arms of mortals. Once I’d had an orgasm with them, I didn’t want them anymore, and they suddenly began to slow down. Simonetta lazily rubbed the ashy stains on her wrists, as if her skin had burned from the inside out. There were traces of ash in her tangled long curls as well. Where did it come from? I didn’t set anything on fire, except by accident. Simonetta, too, looked so bewildered, as if she could not understand why, after a stormy night of love, she suddenly felt so bad.

As I left, I noticed a slight burn at the corner of her lips. I tried to be gentle, but I can’t control everything. The ointments and balms she was using, judging by the number of them on the dressing table, would do her good.

Someone whispered to me that I should linger to see the curious consequences of what I had done, but I was in a hurry to get to Foyle. Moriella is waiting for me there. Well, I hope she is. And even if she isn’t, it won’t be too hard to seduce the lonely poor thing. It’s those whose husbands or fiancés are old who seek comfort in the arms of lovers the most. And this was Moriella’s case.

I turned into a dragon and flew toward the coastal town of Foile. The sensation of someone watching my transformation through the window was far away near Simonetta’s house, and the cold waves were crashing beneath my wings in a matter of minutes. Jokingly, I exhaled a jet of fire directly into the sea. Before it was extinguished, it caught fire right on the water, easily burning the flocks of fish swimming on the surface. So I can make a fire in the sea if I try hard enough.

“Don’t, monsieur,” a mermaid squeaked pitifully from the depths. With a coral comb in her blue curls and blue eyebrows and eyelashes, she looked so pretty that I obeyed her. Maybe I’ll visit her someday at my leisure. But for now, my goal was Foile and Morietta’s father’s fortress. I reached the city in astonishing speed. Yes, it wasn’t far away. It was built on a small island. The sea surrounded it on all sides. There was a long bridge from the land to it, which was used by food carts and mail carriages. All other trade with the city was conducted by sea. The caravels and brigs in the harbor looked like fairy-tale rooks. There are good shipyards, talented craftsmen, and the city itself is beautiful, but I suddenly awoke the devil in me. Why not burn it down? Moriella’s being held prisoner here, and they want to marry someone they don’t love.

The mermaid had already hidden from me in the sea. It was just a glimpse of her tail, as blue as her curls. And I was already flying toward the city. Its pointed turrets and exquisite balustrades did not embarrass me. I breathed fire a couple times, and the fire was so hot that none of the archers on the wall had time to react. The sentry who struck the bells had both hands burned off. And the bell tower itself was on fire. I indifferently watched the fire from above, magically calculating where the fortress I needed was.

“You are an arsonist!” It was a girl shouting from the window, aiming a crossbow at me. Oh, my God! It was her. That’s Moriella. I didn’t get a good look at her last time. She’s much prettier when viewed from the air than when you watch her carriage from the street.

She shot at me, and of course she missed. The dragon was flying too fast. If she had hit, though, her arrow wouldn’t have hurt me much, even if it had been poisoned.

I used magic just in case, and Moriella’s arms ached so much that she dropped the crossbow herself. I can’t fight her! How can you fight a lady, and such a seductive one at that? The prudent beauty immediately moved away from the window when she realized she didn’t have the strength to fight me. The problem was, she had nowhere to retreat to. The fire that had taken over the fortress from the neighboring wings had blocked all the exits. Moriella was trapped, and she wasn’t cursing like a lady, from what I could hear.

It was embarrassing that I’d burned down the whole town before I flew into her window. But what else could I do? That’s just the way it is. The ones I liked best, I courted with passion. And my passion often led to fire.

When she saw the dragon transform into a handsome young man, Moriella lost her self-defense. The arrogance in her violet eyes was replaced by confusion and… by longing. How often I’d seen that amorous expression in the eyes of ladies, but with her, for some reason, it was especially pleasing. I held out my hand to her. And she threw herself at me, not even afraid of what a young man experienced in magic might do to her. And what choice did she have: either burn or fly away with me.

I should have given Rose no choice. Perhaps then she would have been more affectionate. But I was foolish to fall in love for the first time in my life. Moriella, too, was apparently in love for the first time in her life. She was nestled on the back of the dragon that carried her over the northern sea. Salt water splashed in her face and cold winds blew, but she stubbornly clung to the spikes on my back and even felt the sharp scales. Good thing she didn’t think to prick me with pins. Rose would have if she thought I was infringing on her rights. Moriella, oddly enough, now considered her freed, not kidnapped. Her hometown was burning up behind my tail, and the girl even began to hum something about the winds of the sea and the free will. Who will understand these beauties, what they really want? One thing is certain: since I burned down Moriella’s house, I’ll have to find her a place in my Empire. Good for her, because if she stays there, she’ll never grow old. But where I could put her? How to make sure the locals don’t abuse her. Shall I give to Percy as a wife? He’d be so pleased! I don’t think so. He’s used to being free and having affairs with everyone. We could get Vincent out of exile and force a wife on him. If you give her a good dowry, he’ll be delighted. The main thing is to divide the dowry into two parts, so that when he drinks his dowry, Moriella will at least have money left over for a family life.

But it’s too early to think about that. We’ve got a whole voluptuous night ahead of us. Only for some reason, instead of a luxurious palace, I flew to a cemetery. There were no grave fairies. They could get jealous of me and start pinching Moriella until she bled. There was one gorgeous stone tombstone that looked more like a king’s bed, decorated with stone roses. I lowered Moriella onto it, and then I landed beside it and took on a beautiful human form. In the meantime, the beauty was nestled comfortably on the tombstone, straightened her purple velvet dress with silver braid. The agate hoop on her forehead gleamed, a reminder of the spells that witches use to heal girls from unwanted suitors. Apparently, Moriella had traveled to such a witch for a reason. The hoop and the necklace were definitely telling her something. I probably wasn’t an unwanted suitor, so all that jewelry didn’t work on me.

Moriella had apparently undergone some kind of witchcraft ritual, because she felt quite normal in the cemetery. I lay on top of her, undid the silver lacing on her corsage, exposing her plump breasts with pinkish nipples, and the night of lovemaking began. It was business as usual. No words but hot girl whispers about how beautiful I was. And every girl promised me I was the only one she’d ever have. I don’t think any of them will keep that promise. To whom are the pretty girls faithful?

“It is only to those whose embrace they die in.”

I didn’t even look back at the snide remark. I didn’t care what grave spirit said it. The familiar act of love had become more fascinating to me than even magic rituals. And Moriella was suddenly the first person I wanted more than just coitus with. A witch indeed! I leaned over her once more and suddenly felt the skin beneath my hands turn to ash. What’s wrong? Moriella’s pupils rolled back, revealing pure whites. Her lips turned to ashes before my eyes, her cheeks blackened and sunken, her hair scattered into ashes that the wind picked up and swirled around. The body on the tombstone seemed to burn from the inside out. A moment ago it had been young flesh, but now it was a handful of ash. Only the silver jewelry remained untouched by the fire. They gleamed over the ashy wreck of a head. The wind blew, and the ashes were gone. I stood staring at the flat tombstone where Moriella had lain a moment ago. What had happened to her after all? I didn’t set her on fire. She burned from the inside out. Isn’t that what happened to all of them? I’d spend the night with them, and the next morning, they’d burn up. Is that it?

To find out, we have to go back to Simonetta at least. Maybe she’s still alive. Then, of course, I was wrong. And Moriella played her own magic to disastrous results.

“Why do you care so much? Why do you care if you kill them or if they burn themselves?”

I shrugged off the annoying voice and went to check for myself. There were ashes at Simonetta’s house, too, but she was nowhere to be seen. It was useless to question the servants about anything, except to find a spirit witness. Usually they fly around and see everything, but I preferred to find out for myself. All I had to do was strain my secret vision and imagine what had happened in that bedroom a few hours ago. I saw it all at once, as soon as I closed my eyelids. The blond mistress was turning into a figure of ash, and she did not realize what was happening to her. Her body was bursting into ash piece by piece. And the fire was burning inside. The fire had gotten into her with the dragon seed.

You don’t have to check any further. I was sure that all my lovers had been subjected to the same deplorable story. So I can’t be with mortal women anymore. So that was the end of the fun! The fairies seemed different, so I’ll concentrate my interest on them.

It’s a pity it doesn’t make up for what I’ve done. I liked Simonetta when she was alive. Now all I could do was put her ashes in an urn.

I was drawn back to the cemetery where Moriella had died, so I flew there. It’s good to be a dragon. I don’t even need a horse to get around. There were even pegasi waiting in my imperial stables.

Dragon, as it turned out, was difficult to be only when it came to love. Especially love for mortals.

How right was the young man who had advised me to buy an urn for Lisette’s ashes. By the way, how could he have known before I did? He was lucky I wasn’t in his way right now, or I’d have had my claws at his throat. I wanted to take it out on someone. That’s when I sought solitude in cemeteries. If you’re feeling down and dreary, it’s better to wander among the graves. Of course, only if you don’t meet there angry and very attractive grave fairies, who always wear black, have an earthy complexion and, alas, are partially rotting. But this does not diminish their beauty.

There were pixies dancing on the graves in the cemetery. I looked at the beautiful portrait carved on one of the headstones. What if she were alive? The dead woman herself must have long since decomposed in the ground. If the body hadn’t rotted away entirely, I could pick her up and rebuild her, but would it be worth it? I’d been wrong once before. That girl was almost intact, but the disease had left its marks on the resurrected body. They would have passed with time, a small dose of dragon fire was enough to banish death and any disease, but hopeless love was too serious an opponent even for magic. Orissa died in agony. The girl lying there under the cedar reminded me of both her and Rose. Dark-haired, very delicate, according to the inscription on her tombstone, she had died on her seventeenth birthday. I didn’t even wonder what it was from. Was it murder or suicide? Was it accident or disease? People die anyway. The strange thing was that the sturdy cedar above the grave had stopped bearing fruit, there were no cones, no nuts, not even squirrels nearby. And the image on the tombstone seemed so spiritualized, almost heavenly. I couldn’t stop looking at it for hours.

What if I took a chance and made a mate out of ashes? If it failed, Henri would rejoice, thinking that I had finally been justly avenged. It would really hurt to lose her if I created her for a short time, or even a century, and then lost her.

For a moment I imagined that in this grave beneath the loose earth lay Rose in a slightly rotten red dress. Just a vision!

Rose herself is sitting at home in Black Magnolia Manor, plotting against her former spouse, that is, me. And I have to find something to do to relieve my loneliness. I’ve decided I will not look at mortal women from now on. My sympathy for them ends too badly. I’d rather concentrate on magical creatures. Besides, there are plenty of them in my Empire.

Peri from the candelabrum

Someone called me from the attic. Who could have taken up residence up there? Certainly it was not a dragon. The voice was definitely gentle. Some fairy locked up while cleaning? As I made my way upstairs, the voice didn’t call out again, and it still felt like there was someone languishing upstairs in the attic. A silent call can be very powerful, too. I could feel it. Only there was no one in the attic. There was no movement behind the door, not a single breath. I opened the old door anyway. Why was it locked in the first place? There’s nothing valuable in the attic that’s worth keeping under lock and key. It’s dusty and cramped. There were only a few chests of junk, and a few unnecessary things: broken clocks, drinking vessels, amphorae, and a rather nice candelabrum. I didn’t remember it. Where had it come from? As I looked at it, candles flickered in the wells. There were nine exactly. A silvery smoke drifted from the yellowish flame.

“Greetings to you, sir,” whispered the melodious voices.

“How good it is that you finally let us out!”

“We waited so long for you to notice us and set us free!”

“We were so eager to serve you and fulfill all your wishes!”

“You are probably tired of everyone around you being unworthy and not knowing how to serve you, but we will fix that!”

“Just tell us what you want!”

The mellifluous speeches caressed the ear. It was easy to fall asleep right there on the stairs. It sounded like the chorus of fairy genies I’d suddenly released from the lamp. Only the voices were female! Were there seven or nine of them? Was it maybe more? They whispered in different tones, but the creatures themselves were not visible. Were they too modest to appear before the Emperor’s eyes? Or are they too ugly? If they were really genies, they could be either beautiful or ugly. Well, let them fly around the castle. I’m sure they won’t hurt me. It would have been better to read some short spell and chase them away right away, but I didn’t bother. As it turned out later, I was cruelly mistaken. One should always be more cautious.

The spirits released from the candelabrum turned out to be very feminine and quite sneaky. They were nine peri. That’s the name given to female genies. They’re also known as good. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the latter. But the peri were really beautiful in such a way that they reminded of paradise and at first they were able to give their arrival a truly heavenly pleasure.

I began to wake up in the middle of the night from their quick caresses. The Oriental enchantresses were very skillful and sophisticated. They came one by one, as if growing out of the shadows at my bedside. Sleep fell from my eyelashes from their quick kisses, from the touch of their fingers unbuttoning my clothes. I usually slept without undressing, but they whispered to me that my body was too beautiful to hide it under clothes. They were surprisingly not burned by my lips, or my saliva, or even my seed. Not one of them got burned. And I suddenly had many nights of pleasure at once. And I knew the pleasure of having my own little harem.

At first, the peri came one by one. Then one day they all came together. That time they even fought over the right to get into my bed. I had to blow fire, the jet of which flew nimbly into the fireplace without hitting any of them, to calm them down. That brought them to their senses a little. In the firelight I could finally make out how good and unusual they were. They were in light oriental robes. And faces were like lovely dolls. Their jewelry tinkled with magic, their eyes were enchanted, and in every black heart there was a strong attraction to me. They’d tear anyone else alive, but the dragon in me impressed them.

“Where did you come from?” I asked them for fun. I wondered what they’d say. Would they lie or admit where their hideout was?

The answer was expected.

They came from the candelabrum.

That’s what I suspected, so I just hummed understandingly. Soft fingers were already caressing my face, nine pairs of lips whispering sweetly to me:

“You let us out of the place where your serwant Vincent locked us up before the imperial wedding. He’s not a good man. He didn’t want us to do our duty to you.”

“Was it your duty to me?” That’s where I was surprised. I didn’t remember them being among my subjects. Though if you consider them a gift…

“To give you the pleasures of the night,” they said in chorus. “That is our duty to the lord who owns the candelabrum, and with it all of us.”

“And did you do that duty to Vincent?”

“He was not our master, we owned him. Foolish boy! Pleasures are for masters only,” the red-haired peri reached for me. She was the most beautiful among the temptresses, and I almost obeyed her again. I wanted her caresses again and again. She was amazingly good.

“By the way, officially you are not married,” she reminded me, “do you want to establish harem laws here? We will be your first and best wives, and fairies second, mermaids third.”

She had it all mapped out. I felt cornered. It’s not nice to be pushed around, even by a pretty girl like them.

“It’s a good thing you kicked Vincent out,” another peri, a blonde with blue eyes, said. “He was harassing us and even locked us up.”

I’m sure he must have thought they were harassing him. But I agreed that he was an obnoxious type. After all, he’d betrayed me, his patron, to run off with my own wife. A flutter of a lady’s skirt and even the closest of friendships came apart at the seams.

So I unlocked the door and thus freed them all. As soon as the room was open they all flew out of the candelabrum. I didn’t even have to cast any spells. The Peri slipped into my life and naturally settled into the bedchamber. It was charming at first. But then I began to understand Vincent’s desire to get rid of them. The Peri were very intrusive friends. And their caresses became tiresome.

They even began to tell me what to do. At first it was just whispers in my ear, but the more they began to sound like commands.

“Fly for the treasure!”

“Catch that winged rogue who almost burned down the castle the other day!”

“How come you haven’t skinned him and melted him down for jewelry? I’m sure his scales are silver. They could be gold too. And eyes like sapphires. Pluck them out and have the Zwergs make us earrings out of them.

“How could you not catch him yet! Aren’t you the most powerful dragon around?”

“You have to catch him!”

“I know!” I thumped my fist lightly on the table, sending sparks flying, silencing all the peri for a moment. But it was only for a moment. They quickly came to their senses and continued.

“Bring us the jewels that your claws have torn from the necks of mortal women!”

“Amuse us with magic!”

“Show us various magic mysteries!”

“Give us rubies and diamonds to adorn our outfits!”

“Bring us magic spinners! We’ll need veils and robes made of their golden yarn, since we are now concubines of the Emperor himself!”

“And invite the musician spirits to tune our tambourines and tighten the skin on our drums!”

“Roast some dwarves on your dragon fire! We want to see how you deal with lazy people!”

“Rip the earrings out of the ladies’ ears!”

“Ride us on the back of a dragon in flight!”

I indulged Rose in these little things, but they all tired me out at once. So I decided to lock them up again. But it’s okay to let them out once in a while. After all, they’re good at pleasing their masters.

Unlike Vincent, who, I realized, had unleashed them too much, I instantly put the peri in order by locking them back in the candelabrum. It was just after dinner, where they were noisily musing and humming to me about what I would have to do for them in the next century. I snapped my fingers, and the bewildered faces of the beauties turned into silvery smoke, which flew back into the holes of the candelabrum that had miraculously appeared on the table in front of me. I took it in my hand and carried it up to the attic myself. Concerned whispers came from the wells.

“What had we done to anger him?”

“Everything seemed to be going so well!”

“We were friends with him! And suddenly it was a betrayal!”

“He was fed up with us!”

“We sang too much!”

“We loved him too much!”

“It’s your fault!”

“No, it’s your fault!”

“Shut up, everyone! He’s a dragon! He could burn us all!” said the most judicious voice at the end. Peri whispered, hoping I wouldn’t hear, but I did, and, frankly, I felt an increasing urge to throw the candelabrum into the fire. Only it probably wouldn’t burn. Let it grow cobwebs in the attic. I’ll have to lock the door like before. It’s a good thing it’s protected by magic. The company of the peri is proving tiresome.

“I have matters of state to think about,” I whispered politely, locking the candelabrum in the attic. “You have distracted me too long. And the problems of the empire do not wait.”

I’d forgotten that there was another dragon flying around, and we were lucky it didn’t swoop down on us while we were enjoying ourselves and burn the castle down.

Beneath the dragon’s mask

I walked, not flew. Fallen leaves rustled beneath my feet. It’s amazing that there are so many fallen leaves in a forest that isn’t fall. They were all green, not even starting to turn yellow yet, and every leaf had scratched marks on it, as if someone had clawed them.

Who dares to be such a freak in my woods? And who dares pretend to be me, a dragon that flies freely through my domain and even burns whatever it pleases? Nothing like this had happened since Simon had appeared. I remembered finding him in the cellars of Prince Rothbert. My pale copy had dwarfed even me. Thankfully, with the destruction of the sorcerer-prince, all it had come to an end as well. We could live in peace.

The fact that I was walking like a commoner was already a bad sign. It meant that my thoughts had led me to a dead end. The last time I had wandered so much was when I was looking for a way to Rose’s forest hideout. There was nothing left to look for now. I knew perfectly well where she was staying, and I was well aware that she wasn’t expecting me to visit, unless I brought her another load of gold and jewelry. Beautiful women are surprisingly sneaky creatures. The only thing they want from dragons is their wealth. Well, protection, too. And when protection is no longer needed, the dragon is left without a lady.

Rose has been my lady of the heart for a long time. Modest and gentle, she stayed by my side until she discovered she had a strong talent for sorcery. I, like a fool, began to help her develop them, even began to teach her the laws of magic myself. And what happened in the end? Rose broke all the laws to become the strongest sorceress who would corner even her teacher. And all just to gain independence from the dragon, who, by the way, faithfully guarded her. I never once hurt her, never once ran my claws into her, on the contrary, I served her faithfully. And what was in return? Not even a thank you. The only pleasant things I heard from Rose were flattering compliments about my radiant appearance and dragon strength. She never once mentioned my treasures, but when she gained her independence, it was clear that she couldn’t live without them.

Rose is the true daughter of Princess Odile. What else did I expect from her? A snake family! Her grandfather is a sorcerer, her mother is a sorceress, and Rose herself wants to be a great sorceress. All her magic comes out to the detriment of others, but she is not the least bit ashamed of it. Rose’s name itself seems to indicate her descent from a family of thorn-like thorns. Rose had gone from being the lady of my heart to the enemy.

Maybe she had created the dragon with her magic that was tormenting me. She could be expected to do such a trick in gratitude for all the treasures I’d sent her.

There were more and more fallen leaves. It was like a green carpet by the path. Some creature with claws was walking through the forest and ripping off leaves in large quantities and then just tossing them on the ground? Why?

Well, it’s not that important. The leaves in this forest resemble emerald plates, and among them, if you discover the secret, sometimes you can actually find pure emeralds. So much so that someone might have searched unsuccessfully for the gems. This is, of course, stealing, considering the forest belongs to me. But I’m not petty. One or two gems won’t take away from my wealth. Besides, only one of my own subjects would enter this forest. My empire in general is populated only by creatures loyal to me, whom I am obliged to care for and, therefore, to make sure that they do not fall into poverty, leading them to steal. So if someone is desperate enough to search the woods for anything of value, it’s my fault. I didn’t follow him. I should have spent less time with the ladies and more time on the affairs of state. Is that someone my subject? Did this creature accidentally wander into my territory?

I wondered. It’s unlikely. The borders of the Empire are delineated by magic, not letting anyone through except those who do not please me or are not invited by some of the locals. Nevertheless, a dragon, unknown to anyone, has somehow penetrated the magical defenses.

So! What I have, according to the complainers who have come to my court: some dragon has started raiding small villages, including magical ones. No one knows where it came from. Not even myself.

So how do we make sense of the situation? It is only to hunt down the dragon. For some reason, I kept putting off that moment, even though I knew I’d find him in the mountains beyond the forest. Instead of flying, I was walking through thickets and brushwood, through a labyrinth of forest paths that diverged in many different directions and led to a variety of magical dwellings of all sorts of creatures.

Why did I suddenly become so modest? What prevents me from turning into a dragon right now, catching a winged rival in the mountains and tearing him apart?

Well, you don’t have to kill him right away. First we should try to find out what he wants and who sent him. Somehow I was sure he didn’t come to the Empire on a whim. Someone had conspired or captured him with magic to control him like a puppet. How many malefactors there were who tried to cause me trouble with magical tricks? I exposed their intrigues, solved the problems they created one by one, and every time came out victorious even from an unequal battle. But now I had a feeling that my luck had changed, and that a new problem might be so difficult that I couldn’t handle it just like that. Probably, nostalgia, melancholy and apathy, which began in me after the broken relationship with Rose, were put on either by herself or Princess Odile and her six magical spinsters. The latter, it must be admitted, were very vindictive.

The torn leaves formed fanciful patterns on the ground. Sometimes they resembled festoons of green lace, sometimes some signs. By the way, a few witch symbols scorched on the path completely discouraged me. I didn’t even know such things. Who dared to conjure in my forest? And why were the symbols scorched with fire and not drawn with charcoal or blood? I’ve never seen anything like this before. The symbols could be seen not only on the ground, but also on the trunks of trees. Even the local squirrels and woodpeckers avoided these trees for some reason. What’s wrong here?

If one followed the patterns of claw scratches on the fallen foliage, symbols were also noticeable. Even a pair of pure emeralds glinting beneath the leaves didn’t distract me from the intricate lines. It seemed like a second more and blood would run down them.

I didn’t cover my eyelids for a moment, nor did I dream of anything, but it seemed to me that the leaves had turned red with blood.

That’s a bad sign! I probably shouldn’t get into a fight with an unfamiliar dragon right away. If I hurt him, would his blood be so poisonous that a single drop of it on the ground would poison the whole neighborhood? Or maybe I’d regret attacking it when it turned into something that was unexpected.

I stare at the patterned leaves and see myself bullying another man’s dragon to death, and as it falls to the ground, it turns into a bloody girl – a Rose! And it hurts me, even though it’s just a fantasy.

I shook my head stubbornly, trying to shake off the obsession like dew from my locks. It turned out that while I’d been walking, my hair strands had gotten as wet as raindrops. It was all about the magic of this forest. It wasn’t raining, but the dew protruded abundantly on the lush crowns of the trees, sometimes turning into small crystals.

It was beautiful and lonely, like a desert. For some reason, all the magical creatures rarely come here. There were disembodied whispers in the foliage. It was some kind of love declarations and requests to stay here forever, away from everyone. I was beginning to like being all alone. Suddenly a claw reached for a pile of maple leaves, but instead of picking them off, it began to draw patterns.

It’s like I woke up from a dream. The troublemaker is here. I have to be vigilant. Too bad the claws disappeared as fast as they came. The trees here have such lush crowns. They’re so easy to hide behind.

There was something alluring, otherworldly about the natural atmosphere. I’d heard of the ladies of the forests and groves. They were fairies who considered themselves mistresses of the forest in which they settled. Or it could be a glade, or a lake, or a pond. Any place in the open countryside. Ssometimes it could be a ruin partially overgrown with moss. I met such a Lady of Ruins once, and even got to talking to her. I bought her some magical wine, and we became friends. But should I be friends with a fairy who considers herself the mistress of my forest or should I just let her know that I am the master here?

By the way, I couldn’t see the fairy or even feel her presence nearby, but I felt the heat of smoldering coals in a furnace. Another dragon seemed to be nearby. I looked around. Was it flying over the forest now? There’s no one visible between the treetops, not even songbirds. I felt like I was stepping into the dragon’s mouth, like a magic furnace.

I’ve never felt like this before. I felt dizzy. It was suddenly unbearably hot. I’ve never been uncomfortable around fire. I could climb into a burning fireplace and it wouldn’t do me any good. He who’s all fire inside doesn’t burn. I am a dragon, after all. No other dragon can intimidate me, even if he’s a powerful wizard. And this place smelled like magic. I could feel someone else’s power and authority. The forest was green and fragrant, and the feeling that I was walking into a fire grew stronger. The alien fire was close. I couldn’t see it, but it seemed as if I could just stretch out my hand and touch it.

The obsession vanished as soon as I heard the squeak of a tit. Someone’s slender fingers had caught it firmly, but why? It was hard to distinguish the hem of a green dress with a golden border from the spring greenery. It was only because of the fringe that I could see the lush skirt, which looked something like an outfit made of leaves. The cape over it was also green and also trimmed with a golden border.

Was I imagining things, or was there a slender, graceful lady walking through the forest? I called out to her. No one answered me. But I saw her at the pine tree. And now I could see only a sign on the trunk, drawn with something red-hot. The ash had crumbled on the bark where it had been burned. I could clearly visualize a red-hot claw drawing that symbol, and the tree groaned. But what does that have to do with the girl? She’s hardly clawed. At any rate, I saw a very graceful figure. It was definitely a lady, and most definitely not a fairy. Could some noblewoman have wandered into magical territory by accident or in search of adventure? Yes, she could, if some mischievous supernatural being had deliberately pointed her way here, into the claws of the dragon. My fairies often liked to have fun that way, luring their earthly rivals into dangerous places and setting magical traps for them. We need to find the girl before something happens to her here. She flickered here and there as if dancing behind the trees. That’s the way people behave when they’re spellbound by fairies.

Her dance seemed to repeat a chain of magical signs. Who was she? For a minute or two, I actually had the urge to attack her. I didn’t know why. But I remembered how cleverly flocks of fairies on the streets at night begin to call to themselves the dressed-up daughters of merchants or burgomasters. Those naively come to dance in their circle, succumb to sweet entreaties, taste magic fruits, and then voluntarily go to the edge of the cliff or to the abyss, where the monster lives. It’s a shame to admit it, but my subjects often behave with extreme cruelty. And I am no better. But occasionally, a gentleman awakens in me. This was one of those rare occasions, and I followed a stranger with the intention of saving her.

She hid in the thicket for a short time and suddenly ran out onto the path ahead of me. Her green outfit with gold trim was indeed luxurious, like a queen’s. And her gait was so light that she seemed to be floating above the ground rather than walking. However, there were some burnt symbols on the path under her feet. I paid no attention to them.

She reeked of heat, as if she had jumped from the ashes of a village that had recently burned down near my borders. But she didn’t show any burns.

I wished she would stop so I could see her face. Her graceful head, with its golden curls arranged in an intricate hairdo, hinted that I was looking at a rare beauty.

“Wait!” I called her again, but she went forward faster, almost running. Well, it’s not hard for me to catch up with her. I didn’t want to change into a winged serpent right now and scare her, but what you can’t do in the excitement of the chase. So I did it. In flight, I managed to catch up to her and pin her against the trunk with my entire slippery golden body. And that was it. The lady is caught. Now I could change back into handsome Edwin and ravish her with my appearance. I became a beau before I realized that the lady was quite unusual.

She was certainly beautiful. She was very beautiful, even. She had a slim waist, shapely high breasts, and a swan’s neck, but one look at her face and I felt a little uncomfortable. Everything seemed to be perfect: long eyelashes like two fans, elegant eyebrows, expressive eyes, skin so snow-white that it was as if it was frosty. If you touch it, you can feel the snowflakes. I had never seen such a graceful face before, but the precious jewelry on it, even I was confused. It was something like a half-mask, going vertically instead of horizontally. Thin gold plates grew straight into the flesh. They stretched halfway down her face from her forehead to her chin. And it didn’t hurt her to wear it? If I’m not mistaken, the unusual jewelry is implanted directly into the skin, but the scar is not visible, as if the girl was born with it. The gold seems to grow out of her skin, enveloping half her face in a lacy pattern. Is it magic?

“Who are you?” my whisper wasn’t fiery, but she recoiled as if she’d been burned. I’d never made such a repulsive impression on a lady before. Did she see right through me? Did she realize I was a dragon? Even my handsome appearance didn’t mislead her. What insight! She’s to be applauded.

A tiny squirrel at the top of a pine tree gestured desperately at me, warning me to approach the beauty. I paid no attention to the warning. Since when do I listen to squirrels? Even if they burned their paws somewhere, like this one, it’s still too early to ring the alarm bells throughout the forest.

The captured lady managed to dodge and run away. She was fast. I barely managed to catch up to her and touch the mask. It mirrored the shape of a dragon’s head and actually grew into her face, right into her skin and flesh. The sensation when I touched it, too, was as if golden rods were growing right out of her skin, weaving into an intricate pattern on her face, which should have been inflamed from having plates of gold implanted into it, but looked delicious. The mask grew right into it and still the stranger was beautiful. The mask only made her look more unusual.

I waited for the girl to say something to me, to ask me something, to express some wish, or at least to apologize for invading someone else’s territory without asking. But she only sought to get away from me as soon as possible. This is the first time a lady has ever run away from me. And I try in vain to meet her. I’m curious, what’s her name? Where did she come from? What kind of family is she from? At least one of her parents must be a magical being. She probably came here looking for him.

“Wait! Don’t run!”

I tried to stop her, and suddenly she breathed fire on me. Just opened her lips and blew a stream of fire in my face. It was a trick of my own. Wow! Of course, it didn’t burn me, but I was shocked. No one had ever done that to me before. What kind of liberties? She’s a beauty, but no one allowed her to deviate from the etiquette of my Empire. All magical creatures here are aware of the basic rules of behavior, both within the borders of the state and at court. The forest is here or the palace and manners must be observed as is customary. Only the girl’s gone. It was no one to apologize to. Only the hem of the luxurious green dress still rustles around the bend in the path. Yes, there are traces of fire.

I thought of angels who could breathe fire. She’s probably one of them. Then there are fire fairies. But she doesn’t look much like any of them. She’s a little out of the ordinary.

“Yeah, she got you,” the leprechaun squeaked. Tiny took off his hat in front of me. It was like he was supposed to. He was the size of a needle, and his hat was even smaller, but he was aware of the dragon’s eyesight. A human wouldn’t have seen him on an ivy leaf.

“Come on,” I brushed the strands away from my forehead. “It is just a girl. Just a pretty girl… And I’m single now.”

“Divorced,” the leprechaun corrected me. How these little things know so much!

“It is all right, divorced.”

“And you are very much in love. I can tell you’re all fire, and so is she.”

“She’s more like ice. No feelings,” I couldn’t even see her thoughts, but the leprechaun shook her tiny head negatively.

“She’s made of fire. And you hurt her.”

“But she almost burned my face off.”

“That’s self-defense. Feeling makes creatures like her hurt.”

I’ve never heard of such creatures. No one in my empire has ever been hurt by feelings, and this place is full of magical creatures. Who is she?

I wanted to ask the leprechaun more about her (he must have known something), but the crumb had already disappeared. The ivy leaf had gone blank. You couldn’t even tell that a second ago there was a tiny guardian of the untold treasures hidden under the ground of this forest. Maybe the girl was looking for it, even trying to dig it up, not by her, of course, but by bringing some helpers who gossiped about her while they were looking for the treasure, and that’s how the leprechaun heard about her.

I looked after her for a long time. The ladder path had already emptied. The greenery exuded a marvelous fragrance after the rain, and the beauty left only the smell of fire and ashes. How could I ever see her again? Fly over the forest and take a closer look? But what if she’s already gone underground? What if she’s from Henri’s underground kingdom? Even though I’ve forbidden his subjects to crawl to the surface, but bold ladies don’t care about prohibitions. This beauty was somewhat similar to Daniella, Henri’s current consort and subterranean ruler. Only unlike her, she wasn’t dead. She was all I could think about. Was it worth it to get rid of my headache in the form of Rose, only to find another woman and look for her everywhere? Asking everyone where she was, who she was and where she came from.

That’s enough! I told myself. I had just been released. It was too early to be captured by another enchantress for a second time, but I kept looking after her, and her footsteps suddenly flashed with fire.

I must have ignited them. But the fire wasn’t mine. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t even the same color. If her footprints had been gold coins instead of flames, I wouldn’t have been so surprised.

Tongues of fire blazed on the path, taking the shape of a woman’s graceful foot. I stared at it like a fool. It was like I’d never seen fire before. I should have run after the stranger instead of standing there. Or even fly after her, because she was moving so elusively fast. She could, of course, be tracked by the fiery footprints, but they were already beginning to fade. I followed them, turned a couple of times around the corner of the narrow forest path, reached the clearing, and then the chain of footprints was broken.

The clearing itself was burnt almost to the ground. Poisonous smoke was rising from the blackened remains of the grass. I could well identify the source of the fumes. A dragon had been here! And that dragon was not me!

Had the dragon eaten the beauty? Or did she fly away on its back? Perhaps that’s why I didn’t attract her attention. From my own experience, I already knew very well that a dragon could shed its monstrous appearance and become someone’s lover. Suddenly, I felt a little resentful. Where would I find this beauty now if she burned in the dragon’s arms the next night?

Something told me she wasn’t so easy to burn. There was something magical about her. But sitting and waiting in the forest for her to come back didn’t make sense either. It’s time to take strict action against the alien dragon burning out my forests. Only to do that, I’d first have to track him down. What a coincidence. Now I have a target to hunt down at once. It was the dragon and the mystery lady.

Trails of fire

If the faint lights were not still burning on the road, I would have thought I was dreaming of the lady.

“Forget her!” A voice whispered in my brain, as if an annoying spider had crawled into my head and was weaving a magic web around my brain. “She’s not for you. Not even for you! You’re the richest handsome man in the world. She’s just an illusion. She could just be your imagination. Don’t you agree?”

I even rubbed my shoulders with my hand. The feeling of someone sitting on them and whispering in my ear was too real.

But he was talking nonsense. How could she be an illusion? The footprints are real. They’re still burning on the road. Even the insects avoided crawling near them. But I wanted to bend down and touch them with my fingers. I’ve never been burned by fire. I’m a dragon myself. I can burn anyone I want with one breath. And it’s a shame to think that after a night with me, girls could burn like dry logs. It’s best to avoid contact with the ladies in the future. But it is not with this one. I wanted to find the stranger at all costs. I must see her again, talk to her. What did she dislike me so much that she ran away so quickly? They say there are women who don’t like dapper men and despise handsome men. But this way, I can change into anything she wants for her. And why did I suddenly fall in love with her? Haven’t I seen a pretty girl before? Why am I so anxious to catch up with this one? What’s so special about her?

It is except her fiery footprints. Ordinary ladies don’t leave footprints like that. The orange chain of footprints zigzagged, as if the lady was dancing as she ran away.

I wondered where she was now. Without her, the forest seemed dark and empty. But the woods had been my favorite place to walk since I considered myself a mere man and the youngest son of a mortal king. It was the creatures I met in the thicket that revealed to me that I myself was an unearthly creature.

Now all the magical creatures had gone into hiding. As if on purpose to avoid crossing paths with the beauty that leaves a trail of fire.

It’s a wonder how the fire in the forest didn’t start. The flames burned exactly where she stepped. That’s some kind of magic too.

Only a dwarf-sized leprechaun waits by the tree. He’s wearing a red cape! That’s the famous Forest Thief. Before you know it, your pockets will be empty and you will be tied to the trunk under the axe blade of the gloomy woodcutter. But he only stole hearts from the ladies. He could pretend to be a good-looking boy when he had the chance. Now he looked ugly and tapped the bark of the tree with elongated clawed fingers. He had ten of them on each hand. Probably it was to make it easier to steal. The fingers are so dexterous that they can strip the bark off the trunk in no time.

“You like the girl, Monsignor Dragon?”

I nodded, ignoring the fact that he’d used the old address instead of the newly adopted “Your Dragon Majesty.”

“I liked it, too,” he said happily, showing his sharp needle-like teeth in a smile. There were at least a hundred of them in his mouth. “But it stings badly. I wouldn’t risk picking her pockets. She does give off a romance of gold.”

“Is it a romance about gold?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise. What did he mean by that? The title is poetic, but somehow it seemed to me that it was actually a name for something.

Forest Thief chuckled understandingly.

“I love to hear it. It only comes from very rich people. Most often from kings who carry their treasury through the forest, and I make the horses pulling the royal carriages wrap themselves in this thicket. That’s where I get to work relieving other people’s coffers. I know you’re against people coming here, even for a little while, but I need the income to pay your taxes.”

“It is all right, I’m not angry!” So he called a romance about gold the sound of coins. How prosaic! I imagined him tangling his horses’ manes and whispering incantations into their ears as a red ghost in the royal motorcades. Good if those kings got out of the thicket alive. One gilded carriage full of treasure he definitely kept for himself. I could see its outline behind the nearest pines.

“And then there’s the golden romance of the dragon treasure hoarders. That’s where even I have to cover my ears. I’ve never fooled a dragon before.”

“And their maidens, if you take on the illusory appearance of a dandy in front of them?” I was angry, feeling slightly jealous that the beauty had flown off with another dragon instead of me.

“The dragon ladies are so dexterous that they can catch anyone by the hand,” he tapped the trunk with his ten-fingered palm expressively. “But don’t worry. The forest is full of riches if you look hard enough.”

The tree he had his arm around suddenly turned golden. I wasn’t surprised. I’d seen such tricks before. The golden leaves contrasted nicely with the green of the forest, but if you tried to melt them down, it would probably fail. That’s the property of all objects turned to gold by magic, but were originally something else. You can buy or trade with them, but you can’t change their form.

“You’re a clever boy,” I praised him.

“I am the first one in this forest,” he said proudly.

“There used to be gangs of them.”

“I scared them away. Maybe you did it for nothing, maybe you didn’t. There’s not enough territory for everyone.”

“It is not mine. I’m used to having many servants.”

“But a second dragon in the Empire was unnecessary.”

He makes a good point. The moon dragon certainly doesn’t belong here. Besides, he’s a raider and a destroyer. He didn’t even give any advance warning of his arrival, and he knew for sure that the throne of the country was already occupied.

The Forest Thief flashed his eyes slyly from under his red hood, as if he could see all my thoughts.

“It is one golden tree. Isn’t that strange?” He grinned.

“What’s strange about it? There are thousands of them in my treasury.”

“Yes, but here in the forest, where everything is green and alive, one golden tree seems so rare. Don’t you think gold is so valuable because it’s scarce? Less than there is green in the trees. But if there was just one green tree and a lot of gold trees, that gold would suddenly lose all its value.”

I decided to check it out. The trees changed color instantly. I didn’t even have to touch them. Everything green turned to gold. And my eyes were tearing up from the bright glow.

And he is wise. Even I, a dragon, did not imagine the whole world to be exclusively golden. I surrendered and enchanted the forest.

“What do you want to ask me?”

“Me?” He was surprised.

“Usually everyone asks me for some favor.”

“I thought it was you who wanted to ask me about Sephora.”

“Who is Sephora?”

“She is The golden lady.”

“What do you mean?”

“They call her that because she loves and hoards gold, like you. And her gold sings, too.”

“I don’t believe such a lady exists.”

“I can prove she does.”

He handed me a mirror. Strangely enough, it was the dragon that first caught my eye, not the lady. The rascal didn’t even apologize for the mistake. But he must have made a big mistake, because even the puddle under his feet suddenly became a mirror.

“Her name is Sephora. I thought you were looking for her.”

I am! The mirror reflected the same lady who had left the chain of flaming footprints. It looked like the image in the big oval medallion, only it vibrated slightly, like a reflection on water. At the first ripple, it would be gone.

“Keep it,” the forest thief offered. “They call me Red Rascal, by the way. It is only because of the color of my clothes.”

“Is it yours, or did you steal it from a traveler?”

“The moon spinners themselves wove it for me,” he said proudly.

I’d never heard of moon spinners. Perhaps there are some in this forest. But I didn’t want to meet them. The six magic spinsters of Princess Odile were enough for me to despise their whole caste for their meanness and duplicity. But the clothes they made were magnificent. The golden thread they spun took any shape without loom or cut. But it was best not to associate with artisans. God forbid you enter into any kind of debate with them. They could stab you to death with a rope, which they often abused.

“You’re brave to befriend them.”

“No, I didn’t. They owed me. They lost at dice. I’m a trickster, as you know.”

“Can you find Sephora for me?”

“Is it the lady herself, not her reflection?” He scratched his ten-toed hands.

“Of course, it is. I couldn’t have an affair with a reflection.”

“It would be difficult. I don’t get out of here much myself. And her fiery footprints scare me off a lot.”

“Oh, well! I’ll look for her myself.”

“Don’t get burned!”

“You’re telling it a dragon?!”

I did almost burn myself on one of her footprints. That’s unfortunate! What a mess! It looks like she’s a rare sorceress. That Sephora! Well, at least now I know her name. It’s best not to trust the Wood Thief, of course. But why would he call a lady her own name? Besides, I heard something like that when I met her.

“Sephora! Sephora! Sephora!”

Now it seemed all the tree crowns around her rustled her name. Or was it a joke of the witch wind? Some dryad on the branches of a yew tree wrinkled her nose when she heard her name. You only did like that when you see your rivals.

“Or when danger has just passed by your tree,” the Forest Thief told me. What a rascal! He can read my mind!

“Look how brightly it burns. If she’d walked a centimeter closer, that pretty tree would have been gone.”

He nodded courteously to the dryad, but she turned away in annoyance. Apparently she found him no less of a nuisance than the lady who inflamed everything.

“I once saw an entire beech burned by her touch.”

“So you were spying on her?” I wanted to grab him by the scruff of the neck and give him a good shake.

“Well, just a little,” he confessed. “I spy on everyone in this forest. There’s no other way to make money if it isn’t from the occasional sheep that stray here.”

“Could it be dragons?”

“Don’t get any ideas. I’m not asking you for anything,” he hastily backed, clearly afraid I’d blow fire at him and burn him on the spot. The idea was tempting, but I held back.

“If you find out anything about her or where she is, come running to me immediately. You won’t regret it. I’ll reward you handsomely.”

“Is it not with what you burn?”

“It is gold or jewelry.”

“I have enough of that. And I can always get more at the expense of the fools who get lost in the wilderness. You know, the ones I’ve helped get lost.”

“Then I’ll repay you with some benefits. It is maybe a year’s tax exemption.”

He didn’t even bother saying that he didn’t like to come out of the woods and nodded eagerly.

“I’m at your service, monsignor. I’ll be waiting for her! It is right here!”

He left ten fingernail impressions on the bark. The name Sephora was scratched out, surrounded by a frame in the shape of a dragon’s wings.

Night dreams

I dreamed I was playing chess with a friend I never had, the king of some magical realm. I had never known such a thing in all eternity. But in the dream we were good comrades. And the chess before us was very unusual; not black and white, as is the custom, but red and white. Rudolfa would have been outraged at the sight of such a violation (she was a chess fairy and observed etiquette in everything). Thankfully, she was not the one watching my dream. The dream was beautiful, but for some reason it made me feel sick. In the dream I somehow realized I was dreaming and wanted to wake up. The friend imposed on me by the rules of the dream was very unpleasant, though attractive. Even his crown resembled the horns of the devil. From it, a living, moving shadow lay on the wall, making faces at me. Could the devil dwell inside the king’s crown, grasp the ruler’s forehead with steel claws, and enter his brain to terrorize his country through him? Anything is possible in a dream!

Here we are sitting at the same table, molded in the shape of a goblin hunched beneath us. I am the lord of the magical people. He is the king of the land beneath our windows, or the king of dreams.

“You are the king, and I am also the king,” he remarked between games. “Our friendship is understandable and appropriate. It is no matter how different categories of peoples we belong to. But it is natural for two rulers to be friends.”

“It’s also natural for them to fight,” I quipped. “In my memory, kings prefer the latter.

He saw my joke and grinned radiantly. Do his teeth look like pearls, or is it just me?

“Would you like to fight me?”

“We are already at war,” I nodded at the chessboard. This was a war, too. It was a special kind of battle. Only we didn’t fight with our intellect, like in the game. The chess pieces themselves were doing the fighting for us. They were alive and moving. I would even call them aggressive.

My partner played red. And this is the color of fire. My color!

“Let’s switch!”

“Why is it?”

“I’m the dragon, not you.”

“Are you sure about that, handsome?”

Why is it that everyone keeps pointing out my good looks and not my dragon strength? Even that horned king of dreams has begun to tease me about my handsome face! And now I’m going to die and show him how I can burn his dream kingdom to the ground. It is except I couldn’t breathe fire in my dream. Probably because it’s a dream and my charms don’t work here. My partner, on the other hand, was demonstrating his strength as best he could. Power emanated from him in black vapors. Perhaps outside the dream he would have been weak, but not here. In the dream, his power seemed unlimited. How sharp his claws were, scratching the board to the ground! And he’s dressed in red and white like a jester.

“Let’s switch anyway,” I insisted. The red pieces on the board twitched at once, either approving my desire to play for them or protesting against it.

“But the game was already in progress. It’s too late to change.”

“Then stop playing,” I released my claws. “I command.”

That usually worked for everyone. Whoever he is, I’m in charge of all magical creatures.

“This isn’t going to work. One of us has to drop out at the end of the game.”

“Why is that?”

“We’re the two rulers and the lady is only one.”

I heard the lady’s footsteps and the rustle of her robes, but somehow not in the castle, but on the bridge spanning from the window to the clouds. But there was a dragon floating outside the window instead of the lady.

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