| |
THERE came an evening when Zorag felt the ground rumble in an altogether different way, as if only one walked where many had once come. It had been many years since the Great Battle. The other dragons did not seem to hear it, for they were still sleeping, but Zorag always had quite an extraordinary sense for these things. Even his mother, when she was alive, would comment on his ability to warn the dragons when any danger was near.
Zorag ventured to the edge of the Weeping Woods, which had found a new name after the new king invaded. It was appropriately named, for many had died in the forest. Many had vanished into the ground. Dragons and men alike.
This was the boundary line. And yet someone was coming. Someone was coming closer.
Zorag looked toward his people. They had not moved. Dragon skin was too thick to penetrate when the ground only rumbled because of one person, but Zorag, with his extraordinary sense, could feel the footsteps quite clearly. He could feel them in the most tender places.
And yet he waited.
The footsteps drew ever nearer. And then Zorag saw a man, hidden in shadow behind a tree. Zorag’s eye was level with the man’s face.
His throat rumbled a bit, in warning to the man, but not so loud that his people were disturbed from their rest. The man looked at him and tilted his head, as if he were not afraid at all of the large beast before him. Zorag did not know whether to be angry or quite glad, for he had missed the humans. Still, this one was about to cross over the boundary line. He could open his mouth and breathe fire and consume this man in little more than a moment. But something held him back.
The man stepped out from the shadows. Zorag saw that he was a handsome man, with deep blue eyes that looked, to him, kind and gentle. They reminded him of the boy he had loved once, back when the dragons began their partnership with the people. And so, quite unnaturally, the dragon bowed.
Was this a long-lost son of the beloved king? Had King Brendon carried a secret that none in the kingdom knew?
Then the man spoke. “I come in peace,” he said. “I come to see you.” And Zorag looked in his eyes and knew that the words the man spoke were true, knew that any words the man spoke would be true.
“You should not be here,” Zorag said, as quietly as he could manage. “If you are found—”
“I know,” the man said. “I, of all people, understand how dangerous it is.”
“You, of all people,” Zorag said. “And who are you, of all people?”
The man tilted his head to the side again. His hands opened and his arms raised, as if he were in the act of surrendering. “I am the king’s son.”
Zorag drew back. Not a king’s son. A king’s son was not welcome here. What could this man with the kind eyes want? How would he betray them? Surely he was sent to destroy the dragons where they had not been destroyed before.
“You,” Zorag said, still speaking in a way he could not understand, this careful, low rumble so as not to disturb the others.
“Me,” the man said, and he fell to his knees. He fell to his knees and wept, and Zorag watched him. The dragon’s heart turned soft and warm, filling with a deep love that he could not deny. “I am sorry,” the man said. “I am sorry for what my father did to your people.”
Zorag said nothing. He merely waited.
“I am sorry for what my father did to you.” The man stood up and walked across the boundary line as if it did not matter in the slightest. He placed his hand on the tender spot on Zorag’s neck, where a line of arrows had pierced his father and brought him to his death. Zorag felt the recognition jolt him once more, as he found another rider, so many years after the first.
“I am sorry for this,” the man said, and he touched Zorag’s broken wing. And then he bowed once more and said, “I am Prince Wendell.”
“I am called Zorag,” Zorag said.
“Zorag,” the prince said, and he smiled. “Well, Zorag.”
He said nothing more. He merely climbed on Zorag’s back, and Zorag took to the air. It was a choppy flight, to be sure, for it was the first time Zorag had taken to the sky after his wing had been damaged. It had been many years, and his wings did not quite know what to do anymore, even without the injury. But they landed, and the prince stole away, back through the Weeping Woods, without any dragon or man spotting them.
They met again and again and again, the prince climbing on Zorag’s back and Zorag taking him all around the land, showing the prince where the dragons were permitted to go and where they were not. It was dangerous for them to fly so close to Fairendale, but Wendell assured him that the people were sleeping, though Zorag flew high so that if there were eyes that happened to look up to the sky, they would not notice the flight of a dragon.
Every night, before they parted, Prince Wendell stroked Zorag’s neck and said, “When I am king, you shall be welcome in the land again.”
And Zorag began to hope and wait and love again.
But the prince’s promise, alas, was never meant to be.