The Duke of Mordrel led me down one passageway and then another. Other survivors stumbled after us, but the duke kept us ahead of them, his eyes warning me to silence after my outburst. I realised at one point that we were in an underground tunnel. It was faintly damp-smelling and cold, and lit by weird blobs of glowing moss that were positioned too regularly to have grown there by nature.
When we had ascended into a fresher-smelling passageway, lit by candelabra, I stopped again and asked where we were.
“In the New Palace,” the duke said. “It is … convenient … for members of the court to be able to get from one palace to the other without having to cross the square.” Then he took my arm and continued to lead me along, motioning for those behind to follow.
At last we arrived in a wide and very well-lit hallway, ending in a large set of doors embossed with a golden sun. I hesitated. Every child in Feravel knew that the golden sun was the symbol of our kings. I was in the New Palace, the home of my king, and those were the doors to some intimate chamber inhabited by royalty. I shouldn’t be here. The people following us took another, smaller door to one side, and I made to go with them.
“No, no, I need you,” Mordrel said, gripping my arm even tighter.
He knocked on the massive doors, and a guardsman with drawn sword opened them from the other side before the duke had even lowered his fist. The guardsman glared at us, and the duke glared back.
“Step aside, man! I must see King Caxel at once!”
“Who’s this, then?” The guardsman pointed his chin at me.
“She needs to see His Majesty as well,” the duke said coolly. “Now let us pass.”
“Mordrel, is that you? Let him through, Sergeant,” said a proud voice from behind the guardsman.
The guard saluted and stepped aside. On the arm of a duke, I entered the presence of my king.
It was disappointing to say the least. The two princes must have got their looks from the late queen, for their father’s features weren’t exactly the stuff of maidens’ daydreams. Balding beneath his crown, stomach stretching his fine velvet robe, and with a frightening beak of a nose, he surveyed us from the depths of a massive gilded chair, his long-fingered hands clutching the carved arms. Knots of people crowded the room, some of them as soot-smudged and tattered as we were.
“Who is this girl?” The king’s voice came out like a bark, making me jump.
“Creelisel Carlbrun, Your Majesty,” I introduced myself, making the deepest curtsy I could manage without falling on my face.
“Who?”
“Creel! The Triunity be thanked!” Luka rushed around the map-strewn table to me, wrapping his arms around me and giving me a rather painful squeeze. I hadn’t noticed him there, and gave another startled jump when he grabbed me.
“I was afraid you had been burnt to a crisp by that dragon,” Luka said.
“Mistress Creel keeps her wits, even when faced with dragonfire,” the duke explained. “She saved my sorry hide as well, Sire, pulling me behind a pillar just in time to avoid a scorching.”
“And for that she is to be privy to this council?” King Caxel was not pleased.
“She knows the dragon that attacked the Winter Palace,” the duke said.
“Creel? You know a dragon?” Luka looked incredulous. The whole room looked incredulous.
“His name is Shardas, Your Majesty,” I said in a hesitant voice. “He’s really very gentle, I don’t know why he’s behaving this way. Something’s happened to him.” I glanced at the duke. “His Grace said something about … some slippers?”
“Mordrel,” the king said in a warning voice. His eyes flicked towards the gaggle of other people in the room, all watching us avidly. “That is not something that I wish to discuss in front of an audience.”
Still standing close to Luka, I saw his face go chalky with shock. He stepped away from me. “Your slippers? The slippers Amalia stole? They were … Where did you … King Milun’s slippers! Caxon’s bones,” he swore. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Luka!” King Caxel snapped. “Not here!”
“I didn’t know. I still don’t know.” Trembling like a newborn foal, I looked from prince to king to duke. “What is this? What about King Milun’s slippers? Someone please tell me what is going on!”
The king’s face was purple. He pounded a fist on the table. “Privy council only!” he shouted. “The rest of you, out!”
All but a handful of the others hurried from the room. Luka moved close to my side again, and gave his father a stubborn look when the king tried to send us away as well. As the room began to clear I noticed the crown prince sitting on a window seat. He came forward, but not to leave. Instead, he took a seat at the table on his father’s left hand, giving me a brief nod by way of greeting.
“King Milun the First controlled the dragons through a pair of magic slippers,” Luka said to me.
If he had spoken in Roulaini, it would have made more sense. What did Shardas – my Shardas! – tearing the roof off the Winter Palace ballroom and burning dozens of people to death have to do with the long-dead king’s slippers and my slippers … if they really were the same?
The Duchess of Mordrel came in looking pale. Her husband greeted her with an explosion of relieved breath and a kiss on the cheek.
“This is a matter for the privy council,” the king told her, though with greater respect than he had shown anyone else.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I just now overheard someone mention Milun the First’s slippers.” The duchess’s expression was troubled. “I know something about them.”
“It seems that everyone does!” The king threw his hands in the air.
“Does she have them?” Luka’s face was still white.
“Yes.” The duchess knew exactly whom he meant. “I saw them before Amalia left this morning. Her new maid was carrying them.”
“New maid?” I raised one eyebrow. “This new maid doesn’t walk with a limp, by any chance?”
The duchess looked startled. “Why, yes. She limps quite badly, in fact.” She went on, still giving me a puzzled look. “I wasn’t certain what they were then, but there is no other explanation. Princess Amalia has the slippers. And from what I’ve been hearing, she stole them from Creel.”
“Larkin, the girl with the limp, used to work at Derda’s shop with me. She stole the slippers and gave them to Amalia.” I tried to clench my fists in my skirt, but the embroidery made it too stiff.
“How did a mere seamstress come by King Milun’s slippers?” King Caxel pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, looking pained.
The way in which he said “mere seamstress” made me bristle – my mother had been a “mere seamstress”! – but I fought the urge to cheek the king and thought about my answer. I had spent months avoiding telling anyone where I had got my slippers and what had inspired me to leave Carlieff Town.
Then the memory of Shardas tearing the roof off the ballroom of the Winter Palace came rushing back. It was time to tell the truth.
“The slippers were given to me by a brown dragon named Theoradus, Your Majesty,” I began. And then I unwound the whole tale. My aunt, Theoradus, the long trek to Rath Forest, how Shardas had saved me. I paused there. “I don’t understand why Shardas would act this way, why he would attack the palace.”
Luka took my hand. “It’s the slippers, Creel. Whoever wears them controls the dragons. All the dragons. Milun used them to win the Roulaini War, but the slippers were lost not long after the war. I suppose this Theoradus found them somehow.”
I understood now what had made Shardas drop the window and carry me to safety. Good as he was, it hadn’t been altruism. It had been the coercion of the slippers.
All eyes were on me: the king’s and crown prince’s, Luka’s, the serious gazes of the privy council. I swallowed and continued my story of arriving in the King’s Seat, getting lost and stepping on Amalia’s lapdog, being hired by Derda, and Amalia’s demand that I give her the slippers.
“The princess recognised them at once?” The king steepled his fingers and focused intently on them, as though his fingernails held the answer.
“I don’t really know. I thought – well, I hoped – that she just wanted them because they were pretty.” I felt very foolish for not listening to the nagging voice in my head. I had suspected from the moment I’d seen Theoradus’s reaction that there was something unusual about them. It wounded my pride to have to say that, yes, the obnoxious Princess Amalia had known more about them than I who had worn them every day for months. I just hoped that they made Amalia’s feet itch as badly as they had mine.
Feet itching …
“The itching!” I blurted out, startling everyone. “Er. They made my feet itch, and Larkin put them on once and said that her feet itched, and she heard voices. Was that – was that part of the alchemy?” The question sounded ridiculous, once I blurted it out. Why would King Caxel care that they made my feet itch?
“And you didn’t think to wonder why?” King Caxel’s face was a thundercloud. “The itching was to alert the wearer that a dragon was trying to communicate with you! And you did what? Scratched your feet and ignored the voices?”
Luka gave me a comforting smile. “How could Creel have known? It was one of the best-kept secrets of the royal family.”
All the same, I hung my head and blushed, embarrassed at my stupidity. Why hadn’t I listened to my gut and tried to find out more about the slippers?
“I’d like to know how the Roulaini knew about Milun’s secret to begin with,” King Caxel said, turning to Miles with a hooded expression. “Our family has kept the means of his control over the dragons in strictest confidence for centuries. Who told her?”
Miles paled. “I never, sir, I swear.”
“The Roulaini have been trying to turn the tables on us since their defeat,” Luka said, coming to his brother’s rescue. “If you ask me –”
“I didn’t,” the king interrupted.
“If you ask me,” Luka brazened on, “Amalia was sent to discover the secret, or to map out our weaknesses. The marriage was a ruse all along.”
Heads nodded in agreement all over the room. I looked at Miles, wondering if he was disappointed that Amalia had only been using him, but he was nodding as well, looking more thoughtful than anything.
“From the day she arrived, Amalia’s been asking questions,” he said. “She claimed to be fascinated by Feravelan history.”
The king shook his head. “Prilian’s no fool: I can’t imagine him sending the princess as a spy. She has no training in … anything other than shopping, as far as I can tell.”
“Making her perfect for the job, Sire,” the Duke of Mordrel said. “Who would suspect shallow little Amalia?”
The duchess put in, “I can attest that, while her personality is somewhat grating, she is nevertheless quite intelligent. And her constant questions looked like nothing more than a very heartening interest in her future people.”
The king groaned. “The Triunity protect us,” he muttered under his breath, then he turned his attention to me. “What did you intend to use the slippers for?”
“Pardon?” I shook my head. “I’m still not sure I understand what the slippers … do … or what they are. Are you saying that I’m a spy?” My knees shook. Would they lock me in a dungeon?
“No, no,” the duchess assured me, slipping an arm around my shoulders. “My many-times great-grandfather – I’m Caxel’s cousin, if you didn’t know,” she explained with a nod at the king. “My many-times great-grandfather Milun was looking for a way to end the war with Roulain and unite Feravel, which at the time was little more than a loose collection of counties, as I’m sure you know.”
I nodded my head to show that I did. As I had told Shardas, the schoolteacher for the poor children of Carlieff Town had thought Milun the First the greatest hero Feravel had ever produced. Behind her back we had joked that she was in love with him.
“Milun made friends with a female dragon,” the duchess continued, “whom I believe was a leader of their kind, and asked for her assistance. Since the dragons rarely unite for any cause, she told Milun that they would have to be forced and gave him the slippers.”
“I see.” I stiffened, remembering Shardas’s harsh words about King Milun. “The dragons tell it a bit differently,” was all I could think to say. The king terrified me, and I didn’t want to insult him by calling his ancestor a liar.
We all stood or sat in silence, staring at one another. Then the king got to his feet and looked around the room, studying the face of each person present.
“We are at war,” he announced. “The Roulaini have attacked without warning. The betrothal of Crown Prince Milun and Princess Amalia of Roulain is hereby dissolved.” He pounded his fist on the table three times. “General Sarryck.” He pointed to a grey-haired man with a military bearing at the end of the table. “You are dismissed to gather our forces and prepare our defence.”
“It will be done, Your Majesty.” The man stood, bowed deeply, and marched out of the room.
“Sarryck has mustered the King’s Guards,” the king said, turning to Mordrel. “There are bowmen on the roof, standing ready. Mordrel, you will command them.”
“Sire,” Mordrel murmured, nodding in acquiescence.
“Shardas,” I murmured, half to myself. “So you’ll shoot him, if he attacks the New Palace?” I asked the king.
“They’ll shoot him if they see a gleam of a scale, whether he’s attacking, or taking tea with a friend,” the king said. “This is war, young woman.”
I closed my eyes against the cold horror and pain in my chest. “He prefers peaches,” I mumbled.
“Creel.” Luka took my hand. “I know that this is hard for you. You cared for Shardas, and I’m sorry. But he’s no longer the dragon you knew. With Amalia controlling his mind, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill even you.”
“I know,” I said with a shiver. “I saw him at the Winter Palace. He was not himself.”
“He’ll likely never be himself again,” the king grumbled. “Now, since you have experience using the slippers, I’m going to keep you close,” he instructed me. “Mora, take charge of her. I want her to sleep in your apartments,” he said to the duchess, who inclined her head in agreement.
“But I really should get word to Ulfrid,” I said to Luka, feeling trapped by the king’s decision and the knowledge that I could not refuse.
The duchess assured me that she would see to it that word was sent. Since I was no longer needed, she and I took our leave of the king and his councillors. The duke excused himself to see us safely to their apartments before he took command of the palace defences. Luka looked like he wanted to come, too, but his father barked for him to sit down and stop twittering. With a grimace, Luka bade me farewell. The door closed on the sound of the king giving the order for a map of the Feravel-Roulain border to be brought in.
The Duke and Duchess of Mordrel walked hand in hand ahead of me down a wide gallery. I was a pace or two behind, studying the portraits that hung on its walls of every queen since the third century.
That was when the second attack came.