Prelude

 

By and large, slavery to Crown Prince Akish was actually quite boring. It was true, thought Rafiq, observing the prince from high overhead, that Prince Akish was vicious, overeager for a fight, and inclined to treat every life but his own with a careless abandon. In spite of that, he was the best swordsman the Kingdom of Illisr (and most likely the surrounding kingdoms) had ever seen, he had a serpent’s cunning for his campaigns, and he very rarely called on Rafiq to assist him in any but his most dangerous ventures. Thus it was that Rafiq, after fifteen years of slavery, had only ever contributed to a handful of the Prince’s more dangerous operations. He had been young when the prince’s father captured him: young but already formidably strong, with his first battle scars beginning to whiten on him. And although in time he began to forget what it was like to be free, he never forgot that he had once been free. Prince Akish, while he didn’t choose to enlist Rafiq’s superior strength for most of his campaigns, liked to have Rafiq accompany him everywhere– a sign both of his power and his nobility.

And Rafiq, doing what dragons do best, allowed his anger to simmer beneath the surface like dragonfire; molten, deadly, and ready to be called upon at the right time.

There was always a false kind of freedom to flying. Rafiq, wheeling left to keep Akish in sight and ease the burden of the incorporeal thread that bound him to the prince, bared his teeth to the wind. The prince had only tried to ride Rafiq once, when Rafiq’s sudden desire to display his skill with barrel-rolls, needlessly sharp turns and sudden plunges for the ground had the prince simultaneously throwing up and tumbling to the grass in an undignified heap. That had ended the appalling humiliation of having a human rider, but it did make things unpleasant when it came to keeping in range of the prince. By dint of painful experimentation, he’d since discovered that the bond would allow him a distance of roughly three miles in any direction before it clawed at him to return. There was also the added advantage that if the prince forgot to attach his communication spell to Rafiq’s ear, Rafiq wasn’t able to hear any Commands. The spell that bound him to the prince only bound him to obey spoken Commands, and if Rafiq took to the air without the communications magic, he was able to fly in the constrained freedom of his three miles for as long as he chose while Prince Akish danced in helpless rage below. He paid for it afterward, of course, but every tiny rebellion was worth it.

“Come down, Rafiq,” said the prince in his ear. “We’re getting close.”

Rafiq flipped lazily in the air and descended in a loose spiral. He glided close by the prince’s horse, maliciously spooking the gelding, then met the ground with practised ease, his callused pads battering the grass flat and his claws tearing out chunks of turf as he went.

Prince Akish’s nostrils were flaring when Rafiq loped back to him. “Heel, you son of a lizard!” he said through his teeth. Rafiq came to heel, the spikes of his wingblades slapping the horse’s flanks and prompting further panic from the poor beast. The prince viciously hauled on the reins but didn’t repeat his insult. Those were the rules. If Prince Akish wasn’t clear enough in his Commands, he was well aware of who he had to blame.

“Don’t spook my horse,” he said instead. “And prepare yourself: I have need of you.”

-Am I polishing your armour or acting as a herald to your arrival?-

“Neither,” said the prince. “There’s a dragon I need you to kill.”

Through a curl of smoke and flame, Rafiq said: -What dragon? There are no dragons of note in Shinpo. Or is it a purge of the lesser beasts?-

“No purge,” Prince Akish said. There was a sharp smile on his face: bespeaking acquisition and not humour, if Rafiq wasn’t mistaken. “But you’re wrong about Shinpoan dragons of note. Even a lizard like you must have heard of the Enchanted Keep.”

Rafiq let a delicate stream of fire purr against the setting sun. He’d seen the vague suggestion of a tower from his position in the air, but he’d never heard of the Enchanted Keep. It was possible that the prince and his cronies had mentioned it, but since Rafiq tried to block out their back-slapping and shouts of laughter whenever he could, it was also possible that he’d ignored that too.

Against Rafiq’s silence, the prince said irritably: “The third Shinpoan princess was taken captive by the dragon of the Enchanted Keep five years ago. Her family already had their heir and their spare, so it wasn’t advertised, but I’ve recently had reports that the family aren’t as ruthless with their children as they’d like us to think. It could prove useful to have the girl as a bargaining chip. And if nothing comes of that it’s always useful to rescue a princess. People like it.”

Anyone who wasn’t the princess or her unfortunate family, thought Rafiq. Prince Akish was already trying to oust his own father from the throne of Illisr: it didn’t bear thinking about what he could do to the neighbouring Shinpo if he had a princess as hostage.

-That’s all?- he said. -We travelled to Shinpo to kill a single dragon?-

“No, we came to kill an Enchanted Keep,” said the prince. “It’s said that the Keep has the dragon in thrall. Whether or not that’s true, the dragon is only one challenge: there are seven circles of challenge to defeat before the princess can be rescued. She’s in the highest room of the tallest tower, sleeping an enchanted sleep until her rescuer braves all seven circles and overcomes them.”

Rafiq gave a fiery cough of laughter. How very human and complicated. -What are the circles?-

“No one knows,” said the prince, with a satisfied smile. “No one has yet made it past the dragon.”